John Gallaher

A Waxing List of Things I Never Became

The opposite of “toxic positivity” is “tragic optimism,”
and I’m depressingly overjoyed by that. I want a tattoo
of that, which I might actually get, as I have an unused $50.00
deposit at a tattoo place that I’m wanting to use before
everyone forgets about it. It’ll be a step, as you can’t
simply decide to be a different person. You’ve got to go
by bits. And this is a great bit. It’s not a “one and done,”
like that time back in college you don’t tell anyone about.
Like how I never became a carnival, so every now and then
I try jumping over something. Parkour, or par coeur, subtle
difference, which probably doesn’t work, but so few things
having to do with the heart ever do, especially when performing
flips. I also never became an astronaut, so every now and then
I hold my breath and drive over the rolling hills of Hwy 46

going 55, and launch several species of gut bacteria
against the roof of my gastrointestinal tract. It’s a reminder
I take to heart, as I burn into the center of the kind of sunset
I never became a painter to make something out of,
saying “woo-hoo,” as I never became a television presenter
for a show on the imagined effects of a thousand years
of erosion on our buildings if we were to disappear.
Because I never became a series of street signs, or billboards
proclaiming that I’m trying not to want anything, as everyone
wants something, so that seems right up my alley,
the alley I never became, affixed to a hotel and factory
for the suspension of disbelief. I’ve wanted so many things.
I’ve tried too hard, then not hard enough, or vice versa.
And just because I’m laughing doesn’t mean I’m not terrified.

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John Gallaher's current book of poetry is My Life in Brutalist Architecture (Four Way Books 2024). Recent or forthcoming poems appear in APR, Ploughshares, Heavy Feather Review and others. He lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review.