Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Negative Jeans

Negativity is inherited
like freckles and red hair.
Furrowed brows
and stretch marks,
smiles that never turn up
and the belief that life
is only shadow.
The voices in my head,
the ones that tell me it’s too late,
the ones that keep me
tied down
like the victim of some horrible rape,
where did they come from?
From my mother’s breast milk
or my father’s seman?
Was I destined to inherit their pessimism
like I inherited his wavy hair and her thin legs?
Now I am at the park
trying to listen to the birds and the small river
that runs beside the park benches,
but all I can hear is the fly trapped in my car
buzzing and buzzing.
I can’t get the fucker out,
no matter how hard I try.