What I’m Missing

A poem

To Sherry McGuinn and her prompt and challenge. A little something from my past.

I miss the insouciance of just saying Fuck. The crispness its sound makes, echoing off schoolyard walls, How it pierced through the bullshit, To the heart of the matter, Its disdain in being correct, The sheer joy of pissing someone off.

Of using it as a verb — slashing like D’Artagnan through the school corridors, Blushing teachers, and principals in hot pursuit I did not care, for I was protected.

I miss the nonchalance of Fuck it The brilliant repartee of fuck-fuck-fuck When the words would all fail me, And my life might feel lost

Of it written on walls, on cold city streets Scrawled across buses and derelict Cars we might meet- On the sidewalks, on the billboards Carved in leather on ancient subway seats

I miss the sound of it echoed in old Catholic churches On porches at midnight, in our own futile searches For something illegal, or something refrained Like a whisper in darkness, or a lover regained.

I miss the indifference, the innocence of youth The passion, and courage, our notions of truth The world was much clearer then, its wheels not as stuck For that richness of purpose while just shouting out Fuck!