I Would Skip This Part
Catechism for November
by Tony Hoagland
In the movie theater one night, you whispered,
“It is easier to watch than to live,”
and on the street outside, you thought,
“If this was a book, I would skip this part.”
Remember when you opened the fortune cookie in March?
It said, “Ideology is bad for you.”
Remember when you called Annabelle
“an encyclopedia of self-perpetuating pain?”
On Tuesday you said, “I’m a small wooden boat,
adrift in the space between storms,”
and on Wednesday you said, “I should go back to the park more often.”
Then you killed the spider with the heel of your shoe,
and said, “I can’t take care of all sentient beings!”
But when the girl with pink hair brought her sniffles to class,
you found a Kleenex in your purse for her.
This is how it happens: One at a time,
the minutes come out of the box where they are hidden:
the witty ones with yellow feathers;
the thick gray ones with no horizon.
But once you swore, “I want to see it all, unsentimentally.”
Once your wrote in your green notebook,
“Let me start in the middle, again.”
***
OK. So what do we do now, folks? If I could, I would skip this part. But that won’t help. So I’m just trying to feel the feelings, one at a time, without giving in to fear or despair. It’s not easy. Which is why it’s important to start again. And again. Right where we are. In the middle of it all.