this memoir

every time i see pictures of europe
i want to push in my eyeballs, delete
the image and vomit i crave i crave
cobblestone and english skies and cold
foreign strange air tiny streets bizarre
accents different colours of people
and scarves and new metro stops and
maps and underground apartments turn
my world inside out and communicating
with my hands and seeing my breath and
missing people and walking in boots wearing
black funny phone number little cup of
coffee and learning and writing my book
because i have this memoir that's been in
my head for a while for some reason the
literary world is far more intimidating than
the heinous hollywood which i freely delve
myself into and simultaneously despise. i'm
working on a short bio for an artist collective
i belong to its coming along nicely they're
gonna put it up with a picture and that's me.
i'm swimming in articles about literary agents
and copy editing and submissions and SASE and
applications for school for masters for restaurants
for the "real job" my mom wants me to get
please i really would settle for salary and
benefits its all so confusing because nothing
is really ever good enough but it isn't good
enough now anyways and i surprised myself today
like why didn't i know this. i've known since i
was a kid i'll be a starving artist til the day
i die i wonder why i'm so surprised now that i can't
pay the bills and this is how people do it this is
how people end up at the bank working as a teller
because they got married and got pregnant and then
tell their baby daughter "you can be whatever you
want to be." well i will, dammit. i'm gonna be
whatever i want to be and today, its a starving
artist i had toast for breakfast and then didn't eat
until shawn bought me dinner but life is good
he loves me and i love him. i wrote a new poem,
i called for a casting, i contemplated shakespeare.
i can't wait for the day when i tell my daughter
she can be whatever she wants to be because i
am whatever i wanted to be, we'll be talkin in
english accents.