What Must Have Been
I must have really wanted
to be a kind person, ’cause
I did nice things for nothing
but now I’m so hurt
so angry that I’d
much rather
kill every mocking bird,
every living thing with
a machine gun
because I am a machine
a lost cause
an artifact to theory, unless
there’d be love and then
I could feel as if I mattered
and as if I
could reach out with a brush
and make a painting of you
with all the colors of a blush, until
you were real
and the world were kind.
I like making rainbows.
I think I’ll dance in the rain
until I am alive with glee
and you will see me
as I used to be
without tears
playing
— Douglas Gilbert
