The rebels are marching in the streets again.
I can hear their chants from my kitchen window,
mixing with the smell of old garbage and wet dog.
I finish my coffee.
The cup has a crack in it.
I think about joining them.
I really do.
But my back hurts from a bad mattress,
and my rent is due on Friday.
Last time I shouted for change,
I came home hoarse to the same leaking sink,
the same quiet dust on the shoes I never wear.
They carry signs painted with big, clean words.
I look at my hands.
Good for opening a beer.
Good for scratching a dog’s ears.
Not much good for holding a revolution.
So let them have the noise.
Let them have the future.
I’ll take this stool by the window,
the slow sunset the color of a bruise,
and the simple, unchangeable fact
of my own tired blood moving through me.
The world doesn’t need my opinion.
It needs one less voice in the crowd.
I turn on the radio….
A man fails to hit a small white ball.
I understand him perfectly.
We both swing at the things meant to sail past us.
I light a cigarette.
The smoke does what it always does:
it rises for a second,
then disappears into the nothing
like everything else.
