some people say there’s a shoe out there for every foot,
but i don’t know if that shoe would fix the scar from the ganglion cyst surgery i had in my twenties,
nor the hangnail that’s developed on my right big toe that begins to hurt
before hurricane season,
but who knows, seems like medical science is making marvelous discoveries
every day about how to walk from one side of the country to the next
i sat up all night waiting for something romantic to happen,
not because i have a secret lover that comes through my neighborhood
at odd hours of the day,
but maybe it’s because i enjoy the silence of the night,
the brooding void that regenerates thoughts into motivation
that manifest their way into kitschy poems like this one,
but alas, i still don’t think i saw anything romantic happening last night
i stay up too late whenever i’m on vacation
from my 9-to-5, and sometimes it feels justified,
but i can’t help but feel a little guilty,
and yet i know that’s the weberian protestant work ethic
instilled within me since i was a child,
that i cannot get away from, no matter how much i logic my way out,
so on this vacation i’ll try to make
my unproductivity look productive, you know,
in order to trick myself into thinking i’m not a bad person
Fred Aiken Writing 