I yop most mornings to irritate my father the brute yop yop it moves him out of the bathroom faster He responds with the gruff all right. He just likes things that seem like fun I do not yop like Walt Whitman for fun ever since the brute literally threw my older sister jury out of the house I yop at him because he hates it my father says reciting what Whitman is impractical Irrational my father says even reading Walt Whitman is a waste of time Despite the fact that we share his last name my father says Walt Whitman never made a dime Which is not true? I looked it up not on Wikipedia But in a book that also said Walt used to write reviews for leaves of grass his own book under fake names Who does that? The perfect poet for me. I'm a depressed anxious kid. I hate myself, but I love Walt Whitman the cook I need to be more positive so I wake myself up every morning with a song of myself Walt says I celebrate myself and sing myself and what I Assume you shall assume for every Adam belonging to me as good belongs to you. I say I am James Whitman I define myself and answer the question that was asked with my momentous birth. I am light I am truth. I am might. I am youth. I assume myself and become what you assume I leap from my bed the dragled but lively vigorous not slow-poked and sapped with misery Despite my eyes and aching teeth which grind all night. I bathe Washing the atoms that belong to me, but are not me. I brush my teeth away away Gummy grime of six hours sleep six hours of troubled dreams that will not slow my hands as they crunched my cow-licked hair into an acceptable No vital posture. I adorn a bright shirt sunburst of red on white a meaningless pattern But so is a sunset so are clouds. I choose low-cut socks and cargo shorts with enough pockets to carry all my secrets It is April the first warm day of the year a day where I can loaf and lounge and contemplate a sphere of grass lying in my palm A day when the sun has to work hard to burn off the mildew of a dilly-dallying winter that beat me to a pulp A day when I forget depression forget my beaten and banished sister jury living out loan somewhere a day to yop Out across the moist air of the park on my way to school I do not mind the grass tickling my ankles I do not mind the chill because I have my old green hoodie infused with the musk of the prior fall the dander in the hood the history of Sweat ah myself I sing through the park greeting trees stopping beneath them to stare at the way the morning sky filters through the newborn leaves I chitter at squirrels who celebrate themselves. Hello my nutty friends contemplating my demeanor they hold their tiny paws to their mouths But I need to keep walking to keep moving to get to school before my mood falls apart Walt says Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sunrise would kill me if I could not now and always send sunrise out of me Some days I feel like I'm on the verge of supernovaing other days I'm a leaf of grass Every day I miss my sister Expelled from home in school with just a few months left no prom no graduation no celebration no gifts a Metaphorical footprint on her ass after years of literal bruises on her body put there by my mother the banshee and my father the brute I loathed in my room while she raged on the front lawn Curcing the very house for the miserable nails that held it together to protect me and my mother and my yaw baiting father I hug trees dozens on especially bad mornings when the walk to Charles Cheezman high school feels long and insufferable to chuck a cheese No one ever got the entire editing process When I hugged trees in the park marks my cheek and reminds me I'm alive or that my nervous system is still intact The trees breathe all the time and no one really notices they take in the air we choke on they live and die in silence So I hug them someone should When people see me hugging an old maple tree in the park they probably think I'm a cook I'm okay with that though. I prefer they not let me know what they think of me Let me be I ask like Walt says I cannot say to any person what I hear I cannot say it to myself It is very wonderful I also hug trees to apologize to them when I was in fourth grade Jury and I threw chunks of scrap bricks at a dogwood tree brick can really do some damage Tears the thick skin right off exposes pale tree for a flesh when we stopped for a moment to collect the larger bit brick bits my sister looked real close at what we did and said she felt horrible the tree is crying She said a tree is a tree I said ready to adjust my technique for some real damage I can't feel anything but Jury said that just because the tree couldn't feel or speak or think Didn't mean we should throw bricks at it. She left me in the backyard. I spent an hour trying to put bark back on the vulnerable tree Another high school a terrible high school day awaits though I'm calm after embracing four trees that will outlive me as I step out of the park onto the pale sidewalk I see Beth King across the street The sight of her reminds me what a girl and a spring-friendly outfit looks like wonderful Imagine butterflies drawn in by a bright flower that they forgot they forget how to fly That's the feeling I get from Beth at her warm weather outfit. I paused a hug one last tree before J walking I want Beth to notice me, but not the crazy part of me So I keep my hand on the tree trunk and let her move ahead so I can follow her as we walk I see a bird in the street. It's that flying away I know birds tend to hob a lot when scrounging for food. This one flaps one little wing like it's injured I look at the bird and at Beth and back at the bird for a moment I think it would be awesome if she noticed the bird and showed some kind of concern But she's texting on her phone very to the template a car passes I cringe But it misses the bird who flops its wing frantically. I need to save the bird No one else notices these things if I can grab the sparrow or finch or swallow and get it to the other side of the street Then Beth will see I'm a sensitive bird loving man A heroic grab of the bird in a well-time yuck will win her heart I jog at the perfect angle so that I can grab the bird dutch on coming traffic arrive light footed at the opposite side Maybe even a summer salt this will be the greatest how we met story ever I dart into the street and make a quick grab for the critter I need to hurry to get through the lane and over to the other sidewalk so Beth can cheer me and hug me and appreciate the Acrobatic Olympic double roll hop. I've somehow just initiated. I'm airborne. I'm really airborne. I'm a superhero I think I've been hit by a bus The horror has been flips around twice I think the bird crumbles in my hand suddenly I cannot see clearly I hold on to the bird but lots of things hurt The diesel smell of the bus is the smell of my shame the kids on the bus are laughing at me I know none of them thinks this is a serious issue the bus driver comes out and screeches at me What the heck you do in running out in front of me? How'd you miss a big yellow bus? I hold up the bird. I was saving a bird The bird's not struggling to flee my grip the bird might be dead That's a damn tasty cake wrapper Yes So it is I look over in Bethes gone she didn't see me almost die or she did and didn't think it was that important