Exits & Entrances

ten very tiny essays

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

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Exits & Entrances

In 2023, this library meeting room contains twenty or thirty poets, many of whom I haven’t seen since a Brooklyn brownstone party in 1992. I do the math and realize that most of these poets, when I first met them, were younger than I am now.

One day soon, a 60-year-old poet will recognize the elderly me with my hunched back and slow gait and remember when I was just 59.

The graveyards are filled with poets. Only a few of them have written poems that outlived them.

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Epiphany

It’s funny to be fat and handsome.

You find yourself believing that the people who find you attractive are more willing to make the necessary compromises that a good life requires.

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I Send My Regrets, My Regrets Send Me

In high school, I loved a white girl whose father kept at least thirty busted cars in the front and backyard of their rural house. He was a mechanic who scavenged them for parts

That white girl loved me back.

Also in high school, I was in love with an Indian girl whose father kept at least thirty busted cars in the front and backyards of their rural house. He was a mechanic who scavenged them for parts.

That Indian girl didn’t love me back.

All these decades later, I fondly remember being loved by somebody who loved me and I fondly remember not being loved by somebody whom I loved.

This is why it’s good to find romance when you’re young. That way, you’ll have decades to learn how to embrace all of your losses and regrets.

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Introduction to World Literature

The people who most want to imprison writers are other writers.

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Justice

I don’t believe in the death penalty but I also don’t object to the executions of the obvious monsters.

You smell that cologne? It’s my hypocrisy.

This life is fraught and contradictory so you gotta wear your full-body armor and clown nose when you leave your house for the long day ahead.

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Breath

If somebody offers you a mint then say thank you and take it.

If somebody promises you that they know how to make the world a better place then kick them in the shin and sprint over the hills away from them.

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Karaoke

I’ve only been to one karaoke night. I enjoyed all the middling singers but wanted to boo the three who were great singers. They felt like royalty and I don’t like royalty.

I didn’t sing that night no matter how much my friends and strangers encouraged me to do so. Apparently, karaoke pep talks are sacred. I’m no singer. I can hear when the notes go wrong but I can’t vocalize them right.

There are many kinds of joy that I don’t enjoy but I promise you that I’m a hilarious guy. I’d make you laugh even if we were out of bullets but still marching into war.

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Humans Don’t Learn Nothing

On the airplane, somebody with a wet cough has decided to fly anyway.

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Karens

I continually promise myself that I won’t watch the videos of ranting white women—of all the Karens of the world. But I keep watching them destroy their lives. And, yes, many of them are racists. But many of them are also mentally ill people in the midst of a mental health crisis. I think it’s quite obvious that some Karens are having a psychotic episode.

Here’s something that’s difficult for people to accept: mentally ill people can be racists.

And here’s something else: racism can be a symptom of mental illness.

And here’s a third thing: we should have empathy for the mentally ill Karens, even the racist ones.

But it’s hurts the soul to even think of holding such empathy, doesn't it? It’s easier to appreciate a bipolar pop star’s artistic honesty. And it’s far easier to pity the half-naked homeless man preaching to the sky.

Can I offer you some advice? The next time you see a video of a Karen, ask yourself this question: What has caused her so much pain that she’s aflame with sadness and rage?

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Romance Novel

If you believe that Native Americans are more spiritual than other Americans then you don’t know very many of us Injuns.