i forgot to register to vote one year,
and then just kept forgetting,
to the point where i got to my mid-thirties without
ever voting for a single politician,
and at this point i’m too embarrassed to reverse course,
so i guess i’ll continue to be apolitical for the rest of my life,
or until i figure out how to register retroactively
with time travel
fascinated by the open wound sitting in the middle of the street,
bleeding out, curled up into itself,
wondering why no one is helping, no one is administering first aid,
no one knows first aid,
because the thought of blowing on the plastic dummy’s mouth
was seen as gay when we were kids, so none of us paid too close attention
to what the health teacher was saying
as much as we paid attention to how short,
and tight,
their gym shorts were, along with that odd bulge
in the longitude of their body that we all snickered at
Fred Aiken Writing 