ART SCHOOL AFFIRMATION

Pluto is nowhere near my sun
but trust me.
I'm repulsive.
Sitting in one of those art classes
at UTSA
(Basquiat would puke)
I cut myself with a blade
while listening to "Sunday Morning"
(cool professor, probably an Aquarian).
Blood sprinkled the white paper
making it more interesting.
"I don't like white people
but I like you," I told my white son
a few days ago
in the context
of telling him
I ordered a book
on how to move
to Mexico.
"You don't need a book."
(he said)
"Just get on a plane."
So I was sitting in class bleeding
because I'll never be as cool as Lou Reed
(the only white people I dig are the famous ones)
and then I hid in the handicapped bathroom stall
(old habits die hard like Bruce Willis)
and there on the handicapped bathroom stall door
I found all the affirmation
I will ever need
from this planet.
"You are so far away from
being a failure."
Somebody scrawled that.
Maybe she was brown.
Maybe she was white.
Maybe she was black.
Maybe she was purple.
I love colorless art and writing best
the kind that speaks to me
without any conceivable agenda attached.
"We all have agendas, doll," someone wise
from 1981 says, blowing smoke in my face
in CBGB's or someplace similar.
I'm forty-three almost forty-four
and very much a failure
according to most.
I look hard in the mirror
and see what I see.
I've got a few records.
The New York Dolls.
Captain Beefheart.
The goddamn Beach Boys.
I hula hoop while eggs boil
on my ex-husband's stove.
Cinnamon toothpaste is my favorite.
If a man wants me, ever, I question his discernment.
In between text messages I memorize the sky.
But I can't tell you the colors
of the socks
I'm wearing.