I confess to having cried in a legion hall
as the local rag’s reporter/photographer point-formed
my reaction to the indecency of being called runner-up.
I confess to this reaction being anger at, among others,
other contestants’ parents, though they were guilty
only of an overzealous pride despite their children
finishing several removes from the ‘LITTLE MISS
HALTON REGION BEAUTY QUEEN’ sash.
I acknowledge giving over to a grief that was swirling
and sharp, and the locus of pain was obvious –
Debbie Miller, who smiles like a hood ornament
and smells like peppermint schnapps.
I confess to the greater part of my anguish burning
like a tire fire, which is to say in the months that followed
I considered awful Debbie in ways that could be described
as detailed or criminal, but however you classify
these thoughts, they were without a doubt scaly and prehensile.
And I confess to understanding the relevance
of the phrase put out to pasture in its relation
to the Platonic ideal of a capital-H Horse,
and now admit to the flimsy laws that govern our talents
and the evaluations thereof, namely, how in the moment’s
I’m-rubber-you’re-glue equation I was what’s led into an Elmer’s factory.
Mostly, I confess to visiting a certain vehicle
in the McDonald’s parking lot while Debbie sat inside
and watched her boyfriend eat, and what I did then
was a study in contrast regarding a box cutter
and a rear right tire, and all of a sudden I got old real quick,
wielded that knife like a rough dollar-store comb,
and while considering what to do next, the moon,
in an effort to describe the world the way my painstakingly
straightened hair described the asphalt,
bled generously on my innocent scalp.