Here’s to You by Jeff Weddle

Here’s to the mad 
the unloved 
the dirty 
and the decrepit. 
 
Here’s to disappointment
and the loneliness so deep 
you can feel it 
in your bright visions.
 
And here’s to art 
and the stars 
we wish on 
 
and all the hard paths and desire.
 
Here’s to the dreamers in distress 
and the scars that will not fade 
 
the scars we show with pride 
when we think to do it 
 
and those we admit we love 
when we are able.

 

Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He won the 2007 Welty Prize for Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press, and has also received honors for his fiction and poetry. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.