can't be wronger.

I suppose I could be more wrong, but what's the use? The way the word rolls off my tongue just doesn't feel right, though.  I've done things that were wrong. I've checked off the wrong answer. But me, just wrong?  As in, the whole of me...my being, my lifeline, my heart? Never.

I say this a lot nowadays: "I don't know what's wrong." And I've been correct. But finally, the answer is finding me, or I'm finding out, and I don't like it one bit.

Fact. I have free will. You do, and she does, and he does, and they do. That doesn't mean everyone's free to do as they please, because let's face it, a lot of people aren't, and for a lot of reasons. A guy in prison can't get out, but he can choose to die trying. If you're dirt poor, you can't run over to the next car lot, buy a fast car, and drive off into the sunset; but you could walk. Free will is still inside of that guy, inside my creepy next door neighbor, and therefore, must be inside of me. What I'm trying to say is that I feel trapped, but there's something building. That's not wrong, and it's not bad, and not even close to evil. I never was. I never will be. 

I remember how horrifying it was to simply get on a bus. Out of context, this seems silly. But it was the kind of bus where the kids would place their backpacks on the seat next to them so I couldn't sit down (and believe me, I couldn't sit down fast enough to keep my heart from breaking). It was the kind of bus that would take me to fourth grade. The kind of fourth grade that said I couldn't look at this or that kid because they'd always ask, "What are you looking at four-eyes," and everyone would laugh. The kind of fourth grade in which the teacher would look over my head instead of at it when the spit balls were filling up the back of my stupid, bowl-cut hair. 

But this ain't no pity party, kids. This is real life, and it keeps coming, like it or not. Grown up or not. Everybody knows this, right?


The problem with all of this is that I stopped getting on the bus. I fought my mother, I fought myself, and by then, the bus had won. I wonder if anyone remembers those mornings. I forget them most of the time. But right now I need to entertain them; to remind me that it's just a frigging bus, and regardless of where or with whom I sit, there's nothing wrong about me. Pause. And I think more recently, both because of and in spite of all of this, I may have been catching all of the wrong buses, even in my adult life. I know this because they were all bringing me back to the same place. And if I weren't wrong enough, it didn't stop there. I've finally stopped catching them at all. The bus won again.

Whenever you find yourself in a box, it's wise to ask yourself who's constructed it, and then find out where the seams are. And finally, what's holding them together. Most times, it isn't much more than a thin layer of glue. I'm holding out for the rain.