Talking About Breakfast

“Try as we might,” said the old poet. “We can never lay down the best feelings in the world.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Youngblood, some things are just too good for words.”

“Like sex.”

“No, not like sex. We been writing about sex for so long, we make it seem better than it is. The poets got sex down cold… hot… you know, whatever. We got sex. But what we don’t got is breakfast.”

“Breakfast?”

“Yes, I said the word, breakfast. And when I said it, I didn’t say it in the form of a question. But I’m guessing from your useless use of words, that you would like me to continue.”

“Please.”

“You see, when you hungry and tired, and you got to go some place you don’t want to go, and the world is holding you back and fucking you up, and all you want to do is wad yourself up into a ball of bad feelings and go someplace and die, and you go and stop in at some little diner and get yourself a cup of great coffee and a delicious breakfast and your spirit shoots off like a geyser… that’s the feeling I wanta lay down.”

“Satiated.”

“Yeah, it’s satiated,” the old poet scratched his cheek. “But it’s more than that because it’s like, after the breakfast, the down and out man knows—he understands, see—that nothing in this world can be so bad, nothing in this world owns him because he can still fill himself up with his bacon and eggs. He can still clean his plate of the goodness around him, and as long as he got that, that feeling and that love, well he got freedom. He’s fed and free. That’s what I want my writing to do.”

“You want your writing to free fed people?”

“Absolutely, Youngblood. Absolutely. Well, I mean, when it ain’t feeding free people.”

“You’re asking a lot of your writing.”

“What do you ask of yours?”

“Nothing, man. You start asking favors of anything or anyone and they take off. Life has taught me that much.”

“Youngblood, I’m only telling you this because I care: you a motherfucking dumbass.”

“Thanks, hoss.”