Bending Spoons

Photo Credit: The Author

I don’t have the chutzpah like they do. Don’t have the conviction of the left or the right. I turn back at forks sometimes. And other times I just avoid. Walk through the middle. Off the beaten. In the grass. Until it gets too tall so I whack, and swat, and spiral out of control. After the panic, I fall back on a dirt path. Without knowing if it was the one to the right or the left. Back at the fork. Out in the middle of nowhere. Out of nowhere, just a fat body that some might call a man flying out of the corn field leaving a dust cloud in the air and blood on the gravel. I lay there. For a day or two. Then I walk. Finally finding others to join after a couple days of head-down zombie limp. And I try so fuckin’ hard to blend in. But they know. And eventually. Inevitably. Another damned fork. And I don’t want to decide. But this time I might frolic through the grass. In the middle. Off the beaten path. Like Mary Magdalene. She’s perfect. I’m not Jesus though. Not worth it. My weight in salt. And I can’t care like she does. Can’t move as she does. Can’t be like she is. I’m unclean. My chest gets tight. And the grass forms thorns. I can’t take it. So, I whack, and swat, and spiral out of control. I don’t have the chutzpah like they do.

Hey, I’m gonna go out and I’m gonna get the world by the tail and wrap it around and pull it down and put it in my pocket — Matt Foley

© Jozef Cain, 2025