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The Width and the Breadth of the Hedge (Free verse) by Fear of Garbage
It is everyone else's fault but mine.
I do not inherit one disease after another or take on one
as payment for character device.
I do not hold the world between my legs or shuck
my fingernails in regret.
But perhaps it is regret. I have never been to
Philidelphia and I have never stuck a toe
in the terribly broad-boards of the Pacific
and I have never sat in a crimson-lit theatre,
crying farce and poetic sticks, and too many hedges.
I have never inhaled the ashes from a pencil lead.
Perhaps it is regret because I am not,
I am not broad and I am not expansive,
I am not ticket nor bamboo tongue,
I am not impressive nor mindful
calender girl, previous result, or chemical.
As always, in some English voice, I am being vain.
Not chemical but vain and my English voice pains me,
night and day.
I do not hold the world between myself.
there is no permission, just punishments
in material-i cannot bear to speak or touch.
I do not hold the world between myself and I-
there are just too many spirits
and hedges inhabiting this place.
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