recycling

it's your 1st year of college & you should be missing home by now but mostly you don't. you read the Chicago newspapers & call family on Sundays. you pick up going to church at a place adjacent to the projects. you're not from the projects & the ones in Chicago seem worse but there's comfort in being around plainspoken folk. the church folk feed you & also cook you food. you take African American studies classes & sleep through Spanish & write poems at night. you read the newspaper. you consider pledging a fraternity. you go to parties to watch people. you don't miss home. you call your ex girl a lot. you imagine her face across the phone line. you stare at the scar on her chin. it is shiny & smooth. you read the newspaper. you text new girls mostly. you invite them to play cards & bet clothes or take them to dinner on your birthday so you don't spend it alone or you share their extra-long twin beds or you just text them. it's your 1st year of college & your nephew is tiny & your niece is young enough to be happy & the world is new & you are not going home for Thanksgiving. you are in the South at a new friend's house. you go to church with his family & to his old high school's basketball game & to his malls & to his grandmother's house. you did not make your team past 9th grade & never went to malls much. your grandmother had been dead for 2 years now. you read the newspaper. his family are nice people. you do not miss home. you go back to school. you stop talking to your ex girl. she has a new guy. you do not miss home. you write poems. you read the newspaper. there are still more kids dying. your 1st year of college & you should be missing but you're still here. you write papers about black people & voting & violence & families & that is the same paper. you don't read the newspaper. you have finals to finish. you go to church on Sunday with your new friend & you talk to new girls & consider pledging. you have heard the fraternities will haze you. you have heard about beating but you are not from the projects & you are not in Chicago. you stop reading the newspaper. you decide to kiss a girl & mean it. you decide to pledge a fraternity. you should have more information about the newspaper. & the girl. & the fraternity. you should call home more. you don't read the newspapers or call. you are not from the projects or Chicago. you do not miss home. or your ex girl. or your newspaper. there are still more kids dying. you convince your new friend to pledge the fraternity. he worries about the hazing, the beatings. you tell him this is an opportunity. don't miss it.