Love Poem: A Smart Kid I Once Knew - Not Funny Comedy, Stayed Alive In Poetry
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Written by: Michelo Mweetwa

A Smart Kid I Once Knew - Not Funny Comedy, Stayed Alive In Poetry

I have always been curious about people from Kurdistan
I wonder why they are called kurds
I wonder when the kurds would become keese
Just like curd becomes cheese
I wonder if birds are called “birds” because they come from “Birdistan”…..
Okay, that kurd-bird joke one time never went down well
One audience I entertained transitioned from swelling to swearing
The agitated audience looked at each other, left and right
The bird joke got me pelted and unhired, now I'm a fly-by-night comic
The joke was inspired by a 12 year kid I once knew, nicknamed “Talk shop”
He used to hang around the market stands and chatted nonstop
The lad knew almost all of the countries with syllables ending with “–stan”
He bragged about Kazakhstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan, with the “stans” he was never done
The smart-arse’s Turkistan questions hit me like a slap 
Unrelentingly he tested me to spot Manhattan on the map
I totally lost my geography to the kids embarrassing pressure
The kid burst into a belly laugh when my finger hovered over Asia
In trying to change the subject, I asked him about the story of Tristan
I was zipped into silence when he told me stick to geography and not romance
I asked the kid what his real name was, and how he got an extra memory chip
He said if he taught me how, the conversation would flip
And then he revealed what his real name was with a “My name is Stan, duh!” 
A felt relieved, as adult dumbness left my shoulder
I bet you would know every country and its geographical location 
If it was made up of some weird syllables sneaking up on your name
The cocky kid asked me to test him on anything
I went spiritual, a subject the kid probably had no grip on
I asked him why we confess to a priest, if God can directly hear us pray
He said “so that we can have an eye witness on judgment day”
I tried to get rid of the boy by pretending to be bored
But I let the boy stay, when he told me that I would miss him one day when I get old