13-18

Tourette's

I was the kid they didn't give the chocolate factory to
matter of fact was so bad and oppositional and had
such an attitude didn't get the walk through and as
always got kicked off the tour and put on lock down
with the loompas who like every c.o. i've ever known
were sadistic and tried to put a scare in you and licking
their chops saying they were gonna eat me up for supper
i laughed hysterical and said "o yeah! you and what army!"
and stared through the bars brooding and full of melancholy
watching the other spoiled brats being sacrificed and going
through their trials and think probably deep down inside
from experience and knowing what it was like to suffer
deliberately set myself up so i don't know guess perhaps in
the future won't compare wonka to the wizard but who knows?

by Joseph Reich

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Joseph Reich is a social worker and displaced New Yorker who really misses dis-place and lives and works out in the state of Massachusetts; He has a handsome little 6 year old with a nice mop of dirty-blonde hair, and a wife eleven years his junior, who must have the patience of a saint as is raising two boys; He misses Shanghai Joe's in Chinatown, all those wonderful Polish diners of the Lower East Side and Dominick's in Little Italy, the Little Italy uptown on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx: He hopes one day to return to play and pray and contemplate with his wife and child in all the wonderful parks along the river on The Westside Highway.