Josh Miller got up and read this poem at tonight's poetry reading in the beautiful atmosphere of our new coffee house. It's beautiful. It's a fight every day to try and reach out past the common alienation and loneliness and make the connection and find some sense of shared humanity, and some days the fight goes better than others.

Tigger's Lament

No one understands me, I tell you

I'd quit bouncing if I had the choice;

but I'm imbalanced, hyperactive

why don't you try being

the sole representative of your species, and see

how you turn out?

Instead of sympathy

I get Owl's platitudes, Rabbit's constant nagging

Pooh's too stupid, and Piglet's too worried

to really listen; Gopher's too busy,

Eeyore's depressing, and I'm tired

of invading Roo's family life.



Sometimes I wish

Christopher Robin would take me out

of the Hundred-Acre Wood

and put me back where I belong

where the gods weren't so cruel to leave me

isolated--a place with she-Tiggers to marry

that feels like home.



But that's just story-book thinking.

So I'll keep bouncing through fields and trees,

trample Rabbit's garden, singing my songs

of feigned happiness hoping that someday

the lie becomes truth.

by Josh Miller