we’ve turned soft

a nation of tender meat

everything insults

the Greats aren’t Great

we praise the mediocre

it’s insane.

who will read poems about flaming hot cheeto’s & Tinder dates a 100 years from now, and say that it is the greatest work they’ve ever read? 

regurgitating the same,

fucking,

shit.

I’m not here to claim that I am better, because I’m not.

All I ever try to do is be authentic.

Be me.

But being me is being harsh and this world has turned soft,

tender.

I can’t fathom leaving my healing unattended 

I can’t fathom a life of 20 years, still wallowing in my muck

Fuck that.

Everything I love has turned to shit.

but oh,

watch the assholes,

watch the assholes be so prolific

while they talk about their bullshit.

while they talk about loving themselves.

going on and on about healing,

but not healing.

talking about witchery

talking about spells

when they can’t even heal themselves…

I am 39 years-old 

that’s nothing,

I’m barely born.

I live in Los Angeles,

a cesspool of grown babies with jobs and apartments.

It isn’t gritty, it is linoleum and two coats of paint.

It is 400 sq. ft of apartment for $1,600 a month because location is everything even if it reeks of urine.

We are a nation of soft tender things that have forgotten to have a sense of humor.

That have forgotten to heal themselves first.

Focus on the serious, everything is so serious, so fucking serious. 

Your MFA won’t cure your heartache.

Your debut chapbook won’t take the pain away. 

If anything, if you’re smart, you’ll be your own pimp.

Pimp yourself out, market your abuse, your pain, your sufferings, your mistakes.

Make people want to save you.

Make people long to be your mother.

Make them long to fuck you.

Over and over again, until they can’t because you’ve gotten too, fucking, old. 

and then what?

…then what?