Livin’ my big fat South Jersey life,

Pounds packed on thanks to bad attitudes and bad upbringing.

Middle-aged now, and feeling the years of bullshit

In aching knees, elbows, heart.

Reared in the shadow of Brotherly Love,

I’ve never lost sight of that dramatic irony

As I maneuvered through minefields

Of mockery, clenched fists, and unquiet desperation.

Years of breathing trash-to-steam vapors and

The angry exhalations of the down-and-out

Have left me gasping for faraway air.

Magazines and screens show me pictures

Of skinny happy folks 3,000 miles to my left,

Doing something that doesn’t look like work

In a place with no cubicles to speak of.

I shuffle through my weeks

Seeing another life float in the sky like seagulls above me.

I can taste this other world, a parallel dimension

Where I’m West Coast-thin

Sipping lattes and the milk of human kindness,

Strolling on beaches with no alpha males watching

For an excuse to pummel me as they laugh too loud

About casino winnings, drinking binges, and whining bitches.

In the California of the mind

The wife and kids splash and laugh through Pacific breakers

Just beyond the shady lenses of my not-cheap sunglasses,

And I settle into days of smiles, open hands, and my firm new flesh.