With a Head Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

So I woke up yesterday morning and found a little sore on my tongue. In two seconds I was wondering which cancer center I should go to, then I tried speaking without moving my tongue, then I asked myself: Do I want to do chemo?

No wonder I used to drink so much, with a head like this on my shoulders. A guy I know likes to say, "My head might be attached to my body but that doesn't make it my friend."

My friends and I call this kind of thing "disaster thinking," the phenomenon of immediately assuming the worst. It's a bad habit we have. Catching myself in disaster thinking mode is the only way I've found to combat it.

Too bad they don't teach this helpful stuff in school: reading, writing, and right thinking.

The poet Karen of the blog Keeping Secrets has ordered the Poetry Bus riders to ponder school this week. Like a good student, I did my homework so's I could catch the big yellow bus around the world. (The "U" that follows stands for Unsatisfactory Citizenship, if you're not familiar with this form of grading.)

U


After you died, I opened a cupboard.
I found an envelope addressed to me
at the house where I lived in first grade.

Inside was a chronological stack
of report cards, my education saved,
possibly prized through every journey
you took in your life.
You took it with you to your death.

I fingered through the leaves
of this sacred record, leading me
from Arithmetic to Algebra,
from Spelling to Literature,
a mostly satisfactory citizen,
growing up on paper, gifted, flawed.

One among them was much creased,
yellowed, worn: On the back,
a note, scrawled in red ink
in my fourteen-year-old hand:

One among them was much creased,
yellowed, worn: On the back,
a note, scrawled in red ink
in my fourteen-year-old hand:

This is a good report
card even if I did get
a U and I’m on the
honor roll so please
don’t hit me.

I remember the battles
and they suddenly slip
through my fingers
like leaves.

Catch the other riders here.