I Woke Up

Jameson Fitzpatrick

and it was political. 

 I made coffee and the coffee was political. 

 I took a shower and the water was. 

 I walked down the street in short shorts and a Bob Mizer tank top 

 and they were political, the walking and the shorts and the beefcake 

 silkscreen of the man posing in a G-string. I forgot my sunglasses 

 and later, on the train, that was political, 

 when I studied every handsome man in the car. 

 Who I thought was handsome was political. 

 I went to work at the university and everything was 

 very obviously political, the department and the institution. 

 All the cigarettes I smoked between classes were political, 

 where I threw them when I was through. 

 I was blond and it was political. 

 So was the difference between "blond" and "blonde." 

 I had long hair and it was political. I shaved my head and it was. 

 That I didn't know how to grieve when another person was killed in America 

 was political, and it was political when America killed another person, 

 who they were and what color and gender and who I am in relation. 

 I couldn't think about it for too long without feeling a helplessness 

 like childhood. I was a child and it was political, being a boy 

 who was bad at it. I couldn't catch and so the ball became political. 

 My mother read to me almost every night 

 and the conditions that enabled her to do so were political. 

 That my father's money was new was political, that it was proving something. 

 Someone called me faggot and it was political. 

 I called myself a faggot and it was political. 

 How difficult my life felt relative to how difficult it was 

 was political. I thought I could become a writer 

 and it was political that I could imagine it. 

 I thought I was not a political poet and still 

 my imagination was political. 

 It had been, this whole time I was asleep.