Monika Nicole Kreidi [NOT me — DR] 

 

STILL I SIGH 

 

Al Bundy, die seltsame, verlorene Figur der schlechteren Vergangenheit 

 
You can watch me lie there in the dirt, 
With my cash register and my shame, 
You can kick me — I am a wreck, 
And still, like the smell of sweat, I rise again. 

 
Does my whining offend you? 
Why do you stand there and stare? 
Because I cry like a man 
Who scored four touchdowns at Polk High. 

 
Like moons and like suns, 
With the certainty of heavy women, 
Like tides that come rolling in, 
I will look at the couch again. 

 
Did you want to see me broken? 
Head bowed and eyes snowed in? 
With shoulders hanging like tears? 
And weakened by the suffering of my soul? 

 
Does my arrogance bother you? 
Does it confuse you 
That I laugh as though with a goose 
Freshly roasted on the table? 

 
You can shoot me down with words, 
You can cut me with a glance, 
You can kill me with debts from over there, 
And still, like shame, I rise back up. 

 
Am I losing my temper? 
Because I think of the old days? 
Dancing like mosquitoes in the hole, 
In the shoe store, my eternal gift? 

 
Out of the huts of shame of the past 
I rise 
Into a future that torments me and screams 
I rise 
I rise 
I rise.