He says its like watching a baseball game
and wishing you were a professional baseball player.
Or wondering why you're not.

I hope what I want isn't that far away. I hope it isn't that fanciful.

I want to feel like my life on this earth will leave behind it some semblance of a damn
for this world, for its lives.

So long ago under a full moon I chose to stay. I heard the goddess speak mercy to me, and I decided HERE when it would be hard and ugly and brutal and full and so gorgeous my throat would close up
tightening on the sweet air
of rotting autumns.

And now I'm not sure who I was promising or telling. Heaven? Me? My imagination.

Goddam you. I'm not sorry I'm not a golden glove or a five time mvp or a whatever the fuck that all is. I'm not sorry that I have a shitty car or that my apartment is lame. I'm not sorry that I'm not famous.

When I am gone from this place I feel I will leave no trace behind me.
My heart is weak and I don't think I could keep from breaking if a child asked me to explain the things that still keep me up at night. I don't have enough answers, and I know she'd be full of questions.
I can't even answer myself.

I want to help
I want to make things better,
I want to feel proud like I'm doing something to clean up and make stronger and leave it better than when I got here.

And I am so afraid this is all as far away from me as a man and his bat in miniature
swinging through the two dimensional space of my tv set
while I watch
hundreds of miles away.