My Childhood (A Lie)

realized there were things
we couldn't solve as a five year old,
pondering universal inconsistancies
as i sat on a swing.
drank apple juice and discussed
beethoven and bach
and off shore drilling with
my father's business partners,
men who could only find it hilarious
that a small child
paid more attentions to the news
than they did.
spent most of my childhood
realizing how precarious
building block castles can be,
especially when there
are other things to do
and older brothers with big feet and
clumsiness inherited as a curse.

ran through sprinklers
with the thought of desert storm
lurking in the back of my mind,
influenced terribly by those
documentaries my brothers made me watch.
nostradamus was my grandfather,
singing me to sleep with shaking hands
and a clock that couldn't be stopped,
no matter how hard i shook it up.
and the rest is history,
of course,
presidents memorized by the age of nine
and states alphabetically recited
at all of my parent's dinner parties.
those people were impressed.

called me the "little prophet"
and joked about me over the dinner table.
and i went along with it,
stupid with knowledge that
held no practicality whatsoever.
but there was that satisfaction of
winning the spelling bee
geography bee
math pop quiz--highest score every time,
hours spent studying because there
were no friends to distract me.
and that feeling--
you know the one--
of knowing,
simply knowing
the answer when the teacher
asked the class,
"has anyone ever heard of
the cuban missile crisis?"