Fix My Self

How do I fix... everything?

I have three boys standing in front of me, and none of them are okay.

Each of them is a rent in the fabric of my team

And I don't know how to sew them up.

This first one, he is an arrogant self-defeatist

Who isn't mature enough to own up to his haircut.

He makes me understand where the bullshit about sports teaching "responsibility" comes from

Because he would be kicked off any team in the school except mine

I guess club teams don't have that sort of power

Or maybe it's just that when you're grubbing for players at EVERY double header

You don't let someone go if they actually show up to practices.

This boy is half socially inept, half play-acting for attention,

And I can't always tell those sides apart

But I know that I can't take away this place, where he feels like a part of something,

For a reason so piddling as my happiness.

This second kid, he wants to correct EVERYONE

(Maybe as much as I did at his age)

And he's more ignorant than he understands.

But even if he is sometimes a little jerk,

No one deserves to be yelled at by their coach every day

And no one deserves to have to stay silent about it.

I wish we could separate family from sports

Like church from state, so this boy

Won't have to give up the sport he loves for the sake

Of the father he doesn't always.

And this third boy, well, I barely know him

All I know is that he can't seem to keep his pride to himself

That, as the newest edition and the shakiest player,

He likes to correct his captains

And pretend to have climbed the social hierarchy.

And I wish it didn't rub me so rawly

That I resort to being short with him. No one deserves a captain

Who judges before they really know.

So to my original question:

How do I fix everything?

How do I take three boys and seven slightly less dysfunctional human beings

And make them work together?

How do I work around your humor, his pride, their friendship

And most importantly, my own arrogance?

How do I resolve problems around

My own blindness? All I want to do

Is fix everything. All I want to do

Is make it perfect. Make everything perfect.

I have these three boys in front of me,

And none of them is okay.

Each one of them has me to blame. Each

Could say that I'm the one who's unmanageable.

How do I change myself to help them?

How do I fix everything?

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