Hot Chocolate

I wanna write, not work today

but the deadlines are inching closer

like the breadlines of the all the big cities

overflowing with homeless vets

just begging for a dollar and some respect

like the one I see outside seven eleven

who say oh thank heaven

when he sees me coming with a hot chocolate

as if it will save him from his snow covered coffin

and I go back to my fifteenth floor apartment

with my heat and my mac and my mattress

studying the words of poets and theorists

as if the difference matters

and I wonder if the one sippin’ his hot chocolate in the cold

feels more like a boy or man

I wonder if he remembers what it feels like to be the a son

of a father proud of his solider

or if his choices have just become the boulder

blocking the sun that shines on memories of his past life

did he ever fly a kite as a child?

who’s string was made up with dreams as he cast it to the wind

i wonder where his dreams begin and his reality starts

when did the seams begin to part?

Study break again,

it’s back down the elevator shaft and across the street and down the block

there he is, shivering in his hole filled socks

he see’s me and smiles

and I know just what he wants

I pour us both a cup

then I sit with him and talk

I ask him why he loves hot chocolate so much

and he smiled for a while

says it reminds him of his moms

says it reminds him of being a child