The Jungle Book.

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Here's a poem I wrote this week. It's called



The Jungle Book

When I was ten,
years later than any of my friends, I saw
The Jungle Book
for the first time.
In the days that followed I remember
being so jealous of
Mowgli.

He could
scale the trees,
never being anything
but that Man Cub
Baloo and Bagheera watched
over him
and
loved him
And
I knew that
with them he would be safe.
Amongst Kaa and the snakes,
no poison would pierce his leather soled feet
created by the carelessness of childhood
and heat of the jungle.
Growing up
among the animals had it perks.
But now, the way it works,
there’s something soft about the world
And oh god I sound like him- the Wiseman.
That wise man who once said

Faggot

No wait.
That wasn’t a wise man,
that was you, my father,
who sat and smiled,
thankful I was able
to play baseball as well as I did
because that meant I wasn’t
totally
one of them.

Mowgli learned to be like the elephants
and marched in time
among the lines
and lines
of them
as they danced
and sought to help him
learn the ways of their species.

I never danced among them
because you, wise man,
were too protective
that any outside influence
would do just that
and influence me
with glitter and sparkles
and the stuff of Lisa Frank
School folders.
And fuck you,
Because I always wanted
one of those.

When you went
my tears
didn’t pass that way down my face
because you passed away
into the ground
but instead because I never showed you
how I could be like Mowgli
and climb the tallest
trees
and
live in the jungle
the way you never thought I could.

So listen to this

because when I lay down my head
I’ll want to talk to you, wise man,
Of the shit that was left unsaid.