Doctor (poem)

DOCTOR

I.

the doctor says, there is hope still.

but have you not heard those who know better? they say he is not a real doctor. they say he is a fraud.

yeah, but those who think they know better think hope is a guarantee-- and like their character, a guarantee is simply an empty promise. I never said that hope is a guarantee. all I have said is that the doctor says-- there is still hope. call him a fraud. but he is the most sincere of anyone I have ever met. and I'll take hope over a guarantee. whether I like it or not.


II.

am I an idiot? to come so far to give up? maybe this is as far as I can go. maybe this is as far as I am made to go. maybe I am not capable of going any further. do you always have to speak in obscurities and beat-around-the bushes? I think you know the answer to that.

am I insanely idiotic. or idiotically insane. or both. because there is such a thing as insanely genius. or geniusly insane. but for sure, I'm neither one of the latter. why do I get so far to recoil even further? hey fear, I say. I say, hey fear, come over here. yeah, yeah, right here. here's my hand. yeah, here, take my hand, right here. that's it, take my hand.

now don't go on thinking you're special. don't you know fear is such the social butterfly. she wants to be everybody's best friend. you're not so special. you are not.

oh, but I am--fear has stuck with me longer than she has stuck with anyone else I know. she has taken a special liking to me, she has--I think she feels most at home with me. I am her comfort zone. she knows she can trust me to be faithful and true. I can confidently say that she does not like you nearly as much as she likes me. I indeed believe she prefers me to you, if I dare say. now don't be jealous. there is still plenty of fear to go around--once she gets finished with me. and she will--

finish me.


III.

But I thought you said, the doctor said, there is still hope.

indeed. well, hope is going to have to prove herself. she has not been quite the friend that fear has been. I have turned to hope many times. but she has not shown herself the same way that fear has. hope seems a bit flaky. a bit unreliable. capricious, I suppose. a bit of an, let's say, empty seat , for lack of a better excuse.

but I thought you said you'd take hope over a guarantee.

well, perhaps I should amend that statement. I'll take hope over a guarantee. But I seem to choose fear over hope, you know. not really on purpose, either, you see. there's just something about fear that draws me to her. it's not her attractiveness. because really she isn't quite attractive, per se. but she has that, I suppose, that special something or other. fear would have you think that she's nothing like hope--fear, she says, I'm not going to leave you, she says. I won't let you down, she says--not like that traitor of a friend, hope. yeah. you know, sure. fear, she knows you. she knows how to make you feel a guarantee, even though she makes no guarantee. hope and fear are, well, I suppose, a similar kind of friend or other, I dare say. they do not promise anyone a single thing. they're friends of, experts in speculation, I suppose. and both offer a sense of danger and, let's see, safety, quite all at the same time. but the difference between the two. well, you see, by gosh, the difference, you see, is that, well, one chooses you and you choose the other. hope comes barreling toward you like so, and well, then, you go barreling toward fear like so. so, really, they're both always there, in a way, working together. one chasing you, you chasing the other --so that you're kind of, well, in a way, caught in the middle, you see. always caught in the middle. I think, perhaps, a long time ago, they loved one another. you know, maybe walked hand in hand like this, you see. but as time went on, they grew apart. they distanced themselves from one another--as so happens so often in life. each decided she wanted the world all to herself--with no room for the other. they are in constant conflict.

what nonsense.


IV.

Well, I'm a nonsense kind of girl.