what gives

give me a chance world

to join you in

giving others the same

give me a chance to

wonder whether i’ll manage

to get old and what i’ll do

when there is nothing to do

but get older

give me a chance

to feel the mediocre conversation

rolling through my kitchen that is filled

with friends and their friends and people

who neither of us are friends with but who came

suddenly and unwanted like a storm in summer

give me a chance

to storm into summer

into the sand

into the sun

forgetting how sweaty the waters

are from glistening beach bodies

like my own

who want the same

to be given

give me a chance world

to forget that i’ve required chance

so much with a confidence full of unabashed

self-serving gratitude and bland inspiration

that you can have too if you just work hard

and harder and hardest of them all

because there is no luck no gamble

just you moving you you working you you giving you

more to move work give

to people like i

who are forgotten when you

successful and needed

say you’ve never used anyone

and didn’t need to

because you are you fully you

and you yes you can be too

don’t you know

give me a chance

to be proven so unalterably wrong

that even suicide isn’t an escape

and that ever-escaping life isn’t one either

give me a chance

to visit the land of the confused

where sex impounds love and

womanly means manly and

i am certain of how i don’t know

i don’t know i don’t know

give me a chance world

if only to give you

more than it