“What It’s Like to Watch an Old Youtube Video of Myself Performing Poetry”

He is doing his best
in his cargo shorts and puberty,
with his kettle drum and forced bass.
He is yelling about something
very, very loudly.

There is a small pink dove
perched in the rafters just out of frame.
I know it is there because he keeps looking at it.

It’s almost painful to watch,
the cheers drowning him out,
the skull on his shirt,
the girl stuck in his skull.

When they call his name,
it sounds like me
when I clear my throat.

I am proud of the boy.
I am a nervous mother at the school play,
watching the boy read his lines
in the costume I helped him make.

When he steps off the stage,
when the video ends,
when the screen goes black,
I catch my face in the monitor.

The proud parent
that sweaty little boy.
He has my eyes.