William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Scars’

The Best of the Best

What grew in me without my knowing, what crept stealthily into my burgeoning little boy’s identity and went unrecognized for years, was a keen sense of competition. The expectation, need, and desire to be the best was administered in tiny doses without their knowing by family, friends, acquaintances, and teachers. The best reader, the best speller, the best runner, the best at throwing or kicking a ball — the process […]

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Scars

High water has driven the homeless from their encampment on the west side of the river. In that place alone, they number in the hundreds. They turn up everywhere — downtown, in parks, under bridges, in the public library, in the hospital half-starved and with nasty infections. Moss grows on asphalt. Daffodils make way for tulips. How high is high moral ground? What is it like to live there? No […]

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