I used to be

[Note: Poem in progress. I know that if I never post it, I will just forget to. I start some poems that I never finish, but I am inspired to make this three stanzas long (I already have ideas), with each stanza as long as this first one.]


I used to be the pathetic

kid whose parent appealed to her gullible

co-workers for purchases of

chocolates

cheesecakes

               onions

used to fuel a trip to Hickstown, U.S.A. or else the nation's capital

with the sweetest intents for the local high school band or dance troupe,

whose potential for first-rate tooting or routines speckled

               with pliés could only be fulfilled by my generous

decision to submit myself to be the indignant victim

of highway robbery in the form of three-dollar industrial sweets

that cost less than half the price at the locally owned

               candy store on the corner.

Their intentions may be sweet, I think to myself with a self-satisfying chuckle,

but their trips will be sultry