bein cool

never much cared about popularity or about people who acted cool
the whole self importance thing was boring
and a turn off

my grandma used to say
when she died she wanted to go to hell
because that was where all of the interesting people would be

i grew up listening to shakespeare
robert frost
walt whitman and poe
for bedtime stories

i had a southern accent when we moved to a suburb
on the north shore of chicago
i was two years academically behind my peers
but i took a bunch of tests and
they said i was smart enough and i'd catch up
so for a couple of years i was dumber than everybody
flatter longer
smaller and younger than mostly everyone
and i didn't really fit in
and then

i got used to it
that quiet inside

i'd listen to mumblings down a hall
and was more focused on a bird that flew into the courtyard
and stood balanced on the edge of a chair
out there
and i got used to it

when i was around people who were what they seemed
i totally dug it
and still do
but the whole cool thing
being a part of it
was often mean and not my scene

as a result when i met other people who approached life
in a straight forward manner
we got each other
and it was like
ah
we're speaking the same language
the age or gender or what somebody did or
how much they made and
who they were
didn't matter
and we knew that
it was what kind of person we could grow to be
and how much of this life we appreciated
and the ironic idiocy that was part of
being human
that we could run on about

my friends were all very different
with all kinds of interests

i used to wonder what they
and we
all had in common?

and i found we had a lot more in common than i had imagined.
we all were exactly who we seemed to be.
no faking, no pretending no posturing
we were just bein
you know undone and all
and we were cool with it

the people who thought they had been crowned
by some kind of
hip hierarchy were always
disappointing

to me anyways
people who thought they were the center of the universe
didn't use the same alphabet
the perspective changed everything

look,
what dogs'll do in their own back yard
may not be the same thing
they'd do in yours
so i always preferred people who said
exactly what they meant
and those who were compassionate
and those who could tell a good story
and have it be real
because we shared something
we didn't want to waste one minute
being anywhere else
because being right here
present in the moment
and awake to life and the possibilities
was cool

if we live long enough
we will all make mistakes
we will all have blind spots
and we will never know everything
so i figure
get over it
or
get used to disappointment