Eight Things I Hate about Me

Getting real after hitting 10 million subscribers.

I hate it when I spend my life

breeding and training elite sled dogs

only to end up the crusty, old villain

in some younger musher’s story.

I hate it when I’m giving an academic talk

at my alma mater

and my old mentor is a no-show

causing me to question the value of my scholarship.

I hate it when I humiliate a nerd

in the lunchroom or bathroom

only for them to become cool later

humiliating me at a house party

or a school dance.

I hate it when I’m trying to avoid

seeing a dive bar right behind me

just as the last city bus barrels by

in the rain, reflecting

in its strip of moving windows

the dive bar’s neon signage.

I hate it when I spend my youth

decrying the hypocrisies of adults

only to become one

who conceives of hypocrisy

as the very pinion of consciousness.

I hate it when I plant a kiss on each bicep

in a dive bar, mocking a dockworker

into arm-wrestling me

whose biceps are twice mine in diameter

only to be all the more humiliated when I lose.

I hate it when I fall off my yacht

and the weight of all the mobile gaming

consoles in my cargo shorts pockets

pins me to the seafloor.

I hate it when I’m in geometry class

intent on disrupting the lesson

with inane and off-topic contributions

only to be moved to silence

by the beauty of the Pythagorean theorem.

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This poem is from my most recent book Returning the Sword to the Stone and was originally published in Tyrant Magazine. A recording of me reading this poem is available at the first link. Also, Happy New Year, and for those of you who do support this endeavor, thank you. For 2025, I have been working on an essay about the Game of Thrones theme song, a bunch of new poems about poetry, religion, parenting, iffy sci-fi premises, and iffy rom-com ideas. I’m also still working on a prequel to Terminator set in prehistoric times, which is almost finished, but, alas, it’s the last 5% of any longer piece that takes 95% of the time to complete. I hope to share all of this here in the new year. If not, I will share whatever else bubbles up in its stead. I have long since stopped trying to predict what crosses the finish line and what dies within miles or inches of it. For example, I have one extremely unfortunate poem about how the tortoise and the hare is secretly a Christian allegory that I was sure would be published every single week for the past forty weeks, but every time I look at it, I hate it and wish it didn’t exist, so it may never see the light of day. There are so many of those. But, I thought I’d try my best to make some predictions anyway, in the spirit of the new year. I wouldn’t bet on the tortoise and the hare one, based on its track record of never being even 1% good, but you never know. Sometimes something unexpected shifts and suddenly the poem that once was horrible is extremely good for some reason. So there’s always hope if what you like more than anything is poems with shockingly stupid premises. Also, I will probably announce a new book of poetry this year, but that’s not yet official. The manuscript is complete, and the title has been chosen, and there are a few cool ideas for the cover, we just have to wait for the lawyers to hash out the details. I’m sure it will happen. Anyway, wishing you all the best of luck in every endeavor in the new year. May the world somehow, miraculously, or with lots of hard work on everyone’s part, see more peace.