On all of the things I'm supposed to be doing right now

It swings open
This systematic misdirection
Subtle frustration in the people around me
Who talk too loudly about insignificant nonsense
As I reminisce about the roads I’ve traveled
The mud caked on my shoes
The hands worn ragged, looking for a ride
I sit here, despondent
Aware of my responsibilities
But helpless to approach them
As they sit on the shelf and taunt me
As I find myself incapable of beginning
What am I, this bone and sinew
This blood and unkempt beard
Thirsty for my own second coming
Cynical after years of debuts, of coming out parties
Bitter at the failure of my will
Convinced that deliverance exists
Somewhere far from here
Where they look suspiciously at my passport
And missing visas
Where they hold me as a novelty, void of a past
Covered in prototype, in my stereotypical façade
Though I fear the world that gives me breath
I fear the uncontrollable wilderness
Of the hand holding mine
Of the eyes fixated
On distant memories and future conjectures
So here I slump in my office chair
Terrified of what I am
A drifter, afloat atop a never ending sea
Surrounded by a legion of the same
Middle class American youths, aimless and obsessed
With distracting themselves
With convincing the world that they’re worth something
So that they can stave off the truth that is whispered in their ear
That they are worth far less
They are the culmination of what their hands have bore
And that dossier is uniquely unimpressive
Now, there I float
Awash with all that’s chasing me
The days spent circling the wagons
Of watching time pass along
Diving into the death I hold in my hands
Headfirst, excited for the tastes
The smells the sights
Of a useless existence, spent hiding myself
From the world that I cannot control
Oh the skills that I could learn
The weight that I could lose
The disenfranchised I could set free
If I could only stand on these atrophied legs beneath me
If I could only walk towards something worthwhile
Tangible, embodied, physical
Flesh and bone
Blood and guts
Tits and ass
All miserable in my defeat
Aware that I am wasting into nothing
And those dreams of my youth
To stand and fight and bring honor home with me
Lies, everyone, turned sour by my unconvincing wandering
My armchair activism
My desperate need for facilitation
I hold no truth
I walk no line
I am a mass, floating in the ether
Buried in mercury
Simple, flat, uninspiring
And, oh, so very self-loathsome
Aware of my faults
Afraid to face them
Content to sit and waste away

With the rest of the world

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