Out There

Fraiser Crane's associate warns him
about making friends with people who call in
to his radio show.
"Be careful," she says,
"There are a lot of wackos out there."

On TV and radio shows there are references
every once in a while
about people "out there",
people not like the rest of us,
and whom everybody knows the rest of us
should be careful never to speak with.

I am that wacko who sits in a filthy dim apartment,
watching Jay Leno and telling him my thoughts
with psychotic telepathy.

I am that 240-pound, 6-foot-2 man
who has no friends, no job,
nothing to do with his time;
who takes rejection hard,
and who is more afraid of a beautiful woman than a mugger.

I am that demented and lonely person
who would be glad to be met, in the media,
with the condescending sympathy the disabled hate;
for what I am met with is ridicule
and hostility.
There are over 2 million of us "out there", America.
It's time you owned up
to your part in the torture that is our lives.

[1999]