Made It By Chad Parenteau

Now stouter

and broader,

temples too

gray to hide.

Had to turn

ugly as me

to become

somebody

able to take

own baggage.

Welcome to

man’s world.

Population:

an army of

lonely ones

cut off. 

No longer

wanted 

but oh so 

very needed.

No one 

gets any

except those

who ask 

so much of 

your all.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.