Rock & Bread Roll

You’re probably wondering why I’m walking down Willow in a towel. In short: it’s the greedy bastards’ in Derryberry fault!! You see, a bureaucrat will do anything to swing a few extra bucks of profit. Even if it means forcing me to cross campus in a towel.

Have you heard of these water-saver showerheads? It comes out like a dribble and it even shuts off the water after 5 minutes. With the total bogus front of making the campus “go green”, the greedy bastards in Derryberry had the resource-scrimping showerheads installed in all the dorms! But that’s not the reason why I’m waving at cars honking at me like they’ve never seen a guy in a bathtowel before.

Not directly. I didn’t mind the 5 minute showers. Fundamentally, it drives me crazy the greedy bastards in Derryberry would even try such a flagrant method of saving money, but the in-and-out showers worked with my lifestyle enough that I had no urge to put up a fight. However, every other guy living in the dorm had an issue with the new showerheads functionally, if not also fundamentally. And that is why I am trekking half-a-mile in a towel to my friend’s apartment.

To their merit, the guys in the dorms were well-read. They knew their Thoreau and Martin Luther King. While quoting these greats, the ambitious young men of my dorm formed the largest demonstration at our university since the Civil Rights Movement. So, because the greedy bastards in Derryberry did something the ambitious young men of my dorm didn’t like, I have to go to my friend’s apartment so I can clean up before my big interview with a company I might work for after graduation.

The ambitious young men of my dorm were in protest. And it wasn’t a sit-in or a love-in, not even a drive-in. They had collected a hundred signatures in commitment to a shower-in. So the ambitious young men of my dorm, some in towels or nothing at all, took turns in shifts to fill every shower stall and prevent anyone from using them. The idea being thrown around was that the greedy bastards in Derryberry would begin to smell the unwashed ambitious young men of my dorm and have to give us our water back.

Although exceedingly ambitious, I must confess it was fundamentally as good of an idea as the showerheads themselves were a bad one. In fact, I was in support of the movement, sans signature on the petition. That is, until I got thrown out on my ass for wanting to clean up for my interview. My feelings, toward the demonstration itself is now neutral; toward the particular ambitious young man who threw me out, negative; and towards the greedy bastards in Derryberry, more negative than I can express.

So that is why I had to walk down Willow in a towel. Now if you excuse me, I have to take a nice long shower before my interview.

-Written on November 9 in my dormroom

Wash.

Wash over me like diffused light, like a waterfall.
I retain my depths, but the colors are wrong.
I retain my humanity, but my outlook has changed.
Wash. Wash over me like a bucket of paint,
Like a bubble bath in the ocean with a clean cloth towel.
You don’t remember me because it was you who changed.
Maybe it’s not permanent, maybe today is uncharacteristic.

When Jesus said ‘my body’s bread, and my blood is the wine,’
the perplexed disciples snapped their fingers to applaud their Rabbi Poet.

Composer of each emotion. Author of the unwritten word.
He has spoken everything into Passion and Beauty.    
My God
          is a Poet.