Kevin Ridgeway

Nostalgia Porn

A new episode of Silver Spoons
brightened the living room after dinner,
my mother in her room passed out
from a long day of work to make the rent,
my older brother in his room in a fierce
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out trance. I was
always outside in the backyard, pacing
back and forth with my hands on my
head like antennae talking in another
language, in a world far away from
the reality of my father being just a
voice on the phone and the promise
of happiness in adulthood when all
the dreams in my head would come
true and make up for the void I filled
with Fonzi, Gilligan, Bill Murray
and my other friends in the box
I wanted to leap inside of and be
rescued, and my family would all see
me inside the box with a silver spoon
sticking out of my mouth and
a million dollar haircut on my head,
in a time when I would no longer
have to survive on just the weary,
lonesome stardust of daydream reruns.

Kevin Ridgeway’s latest book is “Invasion of the Shadow People” (Luchador Press).  His work has appeared in The Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, Plainsongs, Meat for Tea, San Pedro River Review and The American Journal of Poetry, among others.  He lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.