good liar 

i wish i was a better liar. i think then
maybe i would have a basement full
of dinosaurs & a car without a light-bright dashboard. 
instead, when i lie everyone can tell.
they can smell my hesitation from churches away.
i got caught shoplifting in college. i had become 
so cocky. a backpack full of jello. i ended up
paying for the whole thing so that 
the manager wouldn't call the police. i sat by the creek after. 
i had five dollars left in my account & i imagined
all the teeth i could buy with that. i see money 
not like a hoard but like a pile of sugar. i ate
strawberry jello & stared into the creek. 
considered catching fish with my hands. carrying
them back to my dorm & keeping them
in a little pond beneath my throat. raising them
to be wonderful children. all of us, escaping
for a gilled life without the same hungers. 
then, thought about what i had done wrong.
too much. too quick. i did not feel bad. everyone
at that grocery store had a clenched face
& they smelled angry. i guess i was angry too.
i have been having a harder & harder time
lying & saying that i'm alright
when i'm really really not. i had the misfortune 
of talking to a politician recently & he bragged about
how much he loved homeless people, all while
he was evicting them from a shoulder of land
by the creek. some people use their tongues
for awful things. i guess i am jealous.
what kind of alchemy did he do in his head
to justify shoplifting hope from our dirt? 
i embrace the company of shoplifters. if i could
lie like him i am convinced i would try to use it
for good. maybe i could talk some money-handed 
people into buying us a stoplight to dance under.
maybe i could talk the winter into staying away 
for a few extra weeks to let us kiss the dandelions
goodnight. do not believe me though.
i am not a holy person & i never want to be. 
one of the people who lived in the encampment 
told a journalist covering the story,
"we are ghosts." i know tonight the man 
who loves homeless people is eating in 
the yellow light of house that could swallow 
thousands of tents. i ate all the jello. it was not
the last time i stole. i don't do that anymore. 
like i said, i am no good at lying & i think 
it might be too late for me to learn.