Channel Changer
A Poem
The news used to be comforting
like pancakes in Grandma’s house on summer mornings
fluffed like the movies, loaded with sugar
and honey and left-behind maple syrup
stains on old cotton flannel pajamas.
Back before the only important thing in sunlight
was my face and how it looked
when they and you read its list
of imperfections like an open
library encyclopedia page.
Maybe I want to stay with them
again, but I mean then: 2006
before any of us really knew
who we were gonna be one day when
we shrugged off the chrysalis of teenagedom
and became the adults you’re embarrassed of
when the crowd asks so did they go to school and
what the hell do they even do there anyway?
I forgot to tell you that’s why I stopped
answering those phone calls
and spent my days folded between the couch cushions
memorizing the cardigans in the news anchor’s closet
just in case I’m ever asked a question
I can actually give an answer to.