whine at cana in poetry

I kind of caught the garter except it was a unicorn mask.
It was a progressive wedding
they weren’t into perpetuating gender stereotypes
but they wanted to salvage what was good in the tradition
so they threw out giant unicorn and horse masks instead.
I’m a tall guy.
If something gets lofted up underhand
I’ve basically got first dibs
so I caught it and danced around in it.
It was a pretty fun time.

But later on someone pointed out to me
that while I was blinded by the unicorn mask
a little girl had almost caught the horse mask
some asshole kind of grabbed it out of her hands
the little girl was sad as a eunich in a whorehouse
and I try to be a good person when I notice.
I’m terrible as noticing when
because I’m a neurotic, lost in my own head
but when I notice I try.

So after I got a couple pictures with it
I walked over to the little girl
gave it to the little girl and said
“I am an adult so I can buy a unicorn mask whenever I want.”
“You should have a unicorn mask.”
And she was very very happy
and her and her sister played with it the rest of the night.

I am an adult.
I can buy a unicorn mask whenever I want
but the opportunities one has to
maybe feel like you’re an okay person
are so much rarer
and basically unpurchasable for money at all.

Being able to feel okay about yourself
because you actually thought it through to do something good
instead of letting some kid be sad because someone else was an asshole
and you were too drunk to notice that you could fix it
that’s as much a miracle as I can ask for these days.

Water into wine at a wedding, that’s a fun little fairy tale
but a whining kid into a smiling one
you can do that
from time to time
hell, even I can when my scatterbrain is clear enough to notice
and it’s worth more
than any chunk of latex.

Having a story I can tell
where I don’t come off like an asshole
that’s a wedding miracle
I can get behind.