Sticky fruit blood dripping down chins

dripping like revelation from the mouth of babes.

I’m afraid I’m a fastidious eater

Eat light, eat polite, I’m seen and not heard

All I can offer—the mistakes I’ve made.

I’m doing my best but I don’t have what it 

takes to be a saint; I’m no holy child.

The small and weak oft confounds the wise.

Someone was preaching at the temple 

and I’m afraid I just wasn’t listening.

I’m afraid that I can’t, that I never was able

to drag my hopes and my dreams to the rafters of success;

I can’t hit the roof you hoped I’d hit. I’ve got all this 

BRAINPOWER, all this POTENTIAL

but I’ve got nothing I can give but creatures made of clay

Pigeons. No doves here. They’re lying on their side,

dead mud eyes staring up at the sky. It knows it’ll never fly, 

and I can’t decide if my brown eyes are looking down 

on my little Shelley’s monster

with envy or with pity.