Game 37

​CHI 101               MIL 106

Some winners love to win
While others hate to lose.

I wonder if the same principle
Applies to losers.

My mother worries
My brother and I
Are afraid
To win--

To outplay our father,
The dead homeless schizophrenic.

That we are being held back
By a Freudian phantom
Buried in our psyches.

Symbolic betrayal.
Jewish guilt.

But I’m not afraid of success--
I love winning.
Winning is my favorite.

Honestly,
I’m not even afraid of failure--
Not really.

I don’t expect every shot to go in
Or every ball to bounce
My way.

I get that’s not how life goes.
My heart can handle it.

Truth be told--
What I’m really afraid of
Is becoming my father.

This man I’m so often compared to--
​
Who I look like
And think like.

So Smart.
So handsome.

I’m afraid that the doctors are right
And that craziness isn’t craziness at all.

It is illness.
And illness is often hereditary--

​Genetic.

Like looks
And intelligence.

What I’m afraid of
Is a tie game.