However.

An ODE to THE CATCHER in the RYE

I killed that game

I killed that game because I could not meet expectations

Of those that were above my limitations

I couldn’t meet that ball as it went over that fence

I watched my team as their heads hung in sorrow

And I watched myself tremble.

This is because the things I knew as an innocent child

Wasn’t seen the same way as a man

And I did not want that

I didn’t want it…

1…

2…

3…

..strikes and you’re out

You don’t get another chance at life,

You don’t get the chance to be a child again.

And now that I know what that feels like

I wish to be a child once more and to remain that way

I watch my sister as she’s sit’n there on the carousel

Going round and round and round

I don’t want to be standing there watching

But on that carousel

I want nothing to do with these pains and responsibilities of being an adult

For I am a failing boy

I flunked out of 4 of my 5 classes at Pencey and couldn’t think of a way to move on

I wandered NY because I knew my parents wouldn’t care

Same thing with that ball game

I somehow knew that the people in the stands didn’t care

However there was this woman reading a magazine

And she looked up and then she looked down

I couldn’t tell if she cared or not

There was a hidden sorrow in her eye

And she believed that her son

Who was of poor sport and character, was the best man in the world

She believed because her son had won, that he had hit that ball over the fence

That he was the best person there

And that I had no right to stop the strong from being who they are

Now I’m not saying that baseball is like life

But it seems to me that when I put on the glove

On which my brother wrote in green ink the poems of the ones be loved

That it means I’m alive

And when something like killing a game happens

I’m dead to those who believed I could hit those expectations

I’ve died some many times over that I cannot count

I dare not count.

1….

2…

3…

… strikes and you’re out of the game of being a child

Old Phoebe my sister is still a child, still a smart child

And I’m her older brother that fails numerous times

That has no love,

No love to come home to, no one who cares

I have an older brother too who’s smart

And a younger brother, who's dead now was smart as well

The same one that wrote on my glove in green ink

The poems of the ones he loved

To him it was still a game

But to me it was life

And I killed that game

I killed myself before I knew it

I want to be Old Phoebe the still innocent child

I also want to be my dead brother because he too was a child

Now that my story has been told and you know what I am

What are you?

Are you those spectator that don’t care about

The children who wander, the children who are lost

Are you those who cheer for the weak

Or the ones who cheer for the “strong”

The ones who are no longer innocent

Are you cheering for yourself for I am not.

I have failed, been kicked out, thrown out

Perhaps it's this innocence that I strive to maintain and know

that has killed me and killed the game.

Not me

Not me

Now know that even though I kid

And even though I may not seem it

I am a smart boy

So please I ask that you cheer for me as well

Because who else would

J.D. Salinger