I miss the prelaw majors,
Their whining over grades--
The pesky little minuses
That ruined all their dreams.
The quibbling over credits
For classes they didn't take
And the lectures from professors who couldn't care anymore.
I miss walking in the summer,
Miles and miles in the heat,
Trudging until my muscles
Felt like dying on the street.
I miss the nosy little preacher
Who tried to claim I wasn't gay,
But who always shared his water on blistering summer days,
I miss Dak's whiny OCD
And Wally's homicidal rage
At nighttime interruptions
To his next working day.
I miss the obnoxious Mexican
(His name I can't recall)
The poems we would write together
On the parking complex's concrete walls.
I miss my friend the drug dealer,
The parties that he'd throw,
And helping to babysit the kids
Enjoying their LSD shows.
I miss sitting in the coffee shop
Two hours past it's close
Chatting with the morning shift cops about the local news.
I don't miss the academic circle jerk
That I must admit.
The egocentric scholars
And their piles of ripe bullshit.
But I do miss being thin
Having any boy or girl I wanted
Though I mostly wanted the only boy I couldn't have.
I miss midtown before the crossing
And the homeless on the roads.
The conversations walking downtown
To catch a midnight show
Broadcast on the back of a museum
At two in the morning.
Sitting between a Skutt boy, and a man who never went to school.
I miss never knowing my next meal,
But never going hungry,
The friends who'd feed each other
Even when we had nothing to share.
I miss the biting cold of winter
The little frostbite scars.
I'd go back again if you'd let me, but I fear I've come too far.