So, there I was, just sittin’ there all tired and shit after playing two hours of some house basketball when this girl I know, Lucy, comes up to me and is like, "Hey, you gonna’ sit there all day? At some point you gotta’ pinch and call it a shit."

That’s when I really started thinkin’.

I mean, I’m like only 23 but if I’m always loafin’ around with my shit-head friends then I’ll like never go anywhere. I started thinkin’ inside myself and I thought, "fuck."

I, like, don’t got no problem with punching a friend or calling him a faggot because I’m like so hard to get to know and my mother never was rubbing me as a child so I’m like neva’ gonna’ open up. I’m like a clam that doesn’t want to talk to nobody — all closed up and shit.

But I was sittin’ there, like I said, and Lucy is like mouthin’ off and jabbing at me with her jaws, like some bird, and I looked … that’s when it hit me — I’m not even using the biggest muscle I have.

I never use my head. And then I became more excited when I looked around at my friends and I realized that they also got heads. There are like so many heads out here. And we all got brains inside our heads.

Now, I know what you’re thinkin’, "you didn’t go to college," and that’s true and shit but I know that I know stuff. I know so much shit. College kids are all faggots anyway. And these little wusses are all stupid in one way that I’m not — I know all about seagulls.

Yeah, that’s right, I know all about seagulls and there ain’t nobody who can tell me more about them. I don’t need no college degree to learn about the seagull.

That fuckin’ sea bird is so cool. I know so much about that white feathered bird. Seagulls love the sea and seagulls love to come off of the sea and search around the trash bins for all sorts of shit. They will take trash and make a nest with it. They are wicked smart. And they also will fly around and let the wind carry them — they are not always flapping.

I’ve even seen a seagull drop its poop on my car. I started lookin’ at it while it was still wet and crap and I noticed that it was white and creamy and that there was a thin, gray, worm lookin’ thing in the middle. I wrote this down in my seagull notebook. I know I am wicked smart about the seagull.

All this thinkin’ was swirlin’ around my head and the whole time Lucy was just yellin’ at me, like, "Hey, Timmy, Timmy, wake the fuck up you fuckwad. What are you, day-dreamin’ or somethin’? I don’t got like all day to sit here while you are lookin’ up at the sky …"

I can look any of those smart kids in the eye and tell them that I know something that they don’t. I can tell those smart kids that I use the biggest muscle that I have whenever I think about the seagull.

Timothy Lugano, 23, is a Dortie resident. He has just published a poetry anthology entitled "Where Do Seagulls Sleep?"