Poem: September 13, 2019

Reruns

Watching Friends all these years later,
and, of course, I can see the jokes coming.
I'm stuck in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre!
All of that stuff still cracks me up, but it's not
why I am watching. I've probably watch them
enough. I like this window back to my twenties,
to the difficult racing need to understand
the adult world, to get my hands around love,
to make so many mistakes and believe that
somehow, they are leading me somewhere,
to believe that I can find my way through
uncertainty, to be clearly defined, to know
the simple answer and matter in this life. I like
the irony that my memory of that time is
just as contrived, just as much a performance,
as the lives that play out in Central Perk and
Monica's apartment. I like looking through time
and through the fourth wall to see how much
of what we believe is important passes out
of fashion, is by necessity, forgotten. I like
the band-collared shirts and answering machine
tapes. I like the giant coffee cups and ugly,
naked guy. I like the nostalgia of near misses,
and all of that unsettled potential. I like the ties
and big jackets, something I suppose we grew
into, and I like it when hilarity ensues. I like
that I can remember when pain was common
and when every choice, so close, seemed personal.