Maybe the Saddest Thing

I can't remember how to ride a bus right.Just the other day, I forgot who I was

and couldn't budge to help a human in needbecause the pen in my pocket was poking

my thigh saying, Use me. Use them. Writetheir stories. As if I am not them—

that woman and her two little girls, mountingsome ten ton thing daily, fare or no fare

rust bucket but not broken down, travelingat a pace beyond my control. And how sad

it is, because I'm really not them. Most daysI keep at least a buck in my pocket to pay

the driver and if not, a briefcase, which saysI'm good for it. That was, somehow, miserable

to admit. I'm only telling you this becauseyou're reading a poem, probably spend

perfectly good bar nights feeling the worlddeeply with the ballpoint pen in your pocket

and though a tad abnormal to discussall humans want to understand everything

and for everyone to understand us.What I can't understand is what makes me

feel a difference between me and any threepeople on a bus. Maybe the saddest thing

in the world, is not knowing how to feelcold, plastic bus seats without thinking

of narrative arc—the 10,000 pains shiftinguncomfortably from cheek to raw-red cheek

and at any given moment. This.