Kevin Ridgeway

Itchy & Scratchy

He’s got a scab
in the middle of his forehead
that he picks at constantly.
It never heals, and
sometimes it bleeds.
The nurses put band aids
on it, but they never stay
put and wind-up clinging
to his cheek or
resting on his shoulder.
He begs for cigarettes
all the time on breaks
from group, reaching out
to the other patients
with bloody hands
they plead with him
to go wash after
they all say no,
but he doesn’t listen,
sitting there with
his fingers on
his face, with
faint whimpers for
someone to give them
something else to do,
like a cigarette
or a piece of candy
to fill the hole
he is digging deep
into the saddened skin
on his forehead
until his troubled mind
is exposed to us all. 

The Frustration of Being Unpopular

None of the girls were interested.
None of the guys wanted to hang out.
and no matter how hard I tried,
I was never the lead in the school play,
and was never the best at anything
but being alone in my room, where
I plotted and schemed for a way
to get their attention, and decided
to commit suicide, but I’m not the
best at suicide, either.  Classmates
sent me letters, strangers who all
wrote that they didn’t know me well
but that I mattered enough to stay alive.
I came to our high school graduation,
where none of them knew what
to say to me.  I still felt ignored,
and crazy to them.  I entered
the adult world a number who is sick
and chained to a system that barely
protects me from the pain of feeling
alone and broken, but I rebuilt
myself into a machine that spits out
endless words to fight the numbers
in a mind bent climb into the arms
of muses who gift me with the peace
of being nameless in an ugliness I’ve
wrestled into something beautiful,
and that no one even has to see.

 

Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) and Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press, 2022). His work has appeared in Slipstream, Chiron Review. Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, San Pedro River Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, The Cape Rock, Plainsongs, Into the Void, Book of Matches, Cultural Daily and The American Journal of Poetry, among others. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.