growing up in my household
musicals weren't on our radar.
This was the late 80s, early 90s,
and my home life wasn't the best,
so I couldn't wrap my head
around a pretty babysitter
randomly belting out songs
while she tended to Austrian brats.
Same goes for The Great Gatsby;
it just didn't hit my heart.
The sentences are wonderful,
but the sum of its parts
were rich people and rich people's problems.
A dirt poor kid
growing up too fast
in the white ghetto,
all I wanted was
to go to a friend's house
who had cable
so we could watch music videos.
Post script,
when I was in college
I typed out The Great Gatsby
in its entirety
just to get a feel for the cadence
of the writing,
so maybe I should watch The Sound of Music now.