Dysfunctional / Some Things I Like

 

(A poem to shout)

I like wrecks, I like ex-junkies, 

I like flunks and ex-flunkies, 

I like the way the career-less career, 

I like flat beer, 

I like people who tell half stories and forget the rest, 

I like people who make doodles in important written tests, 

I like being late. I like fate. I like the way teeth grate, 

I like laceless shoes cordless blues,I like the one-bar blues, 

I like buttonless coats and leaky boats, 

I like rubbish tips and bitten lips, 

I like yesterday’s toast, 

I like cold tea, I like reality, 

I like ashtrays, I write and like crap plays. 

I like curtains that don’t quite shut, 

I like bread knives that don’t quite cut, 

I like rips in blue jeans, 

I like people who can’t say what they mean, 

I like spiders with no legs, pencils with no lead, 

Ants with no heads, worms that are half dead. 

I like holes, I like coffee cold. I like creases in neat folds. 

I like signs that just don’t know where they’re going, 

I like angry poems, 

I like the way you can’t pin down the sea. 

See.

—Lemn Sissay