You believe, indeed,
that you truly comprehend--
I’ll admit that intent evades
even my understanding
at times;
but you—
[you are sure]
you know everything about me!
Since there is nothing left
for me to discover, WAIT!!--
Let me cover my eyes,
gorge myself on manure
[because it tastes like chicken],
and bask in the afterglow of your conclusion.
If you walked a yard in my shoes,
I wouldn’t have to waste time
explaining the blisters on my feet,
So simplify life for both of us—
Just ask.
Ask why I sit in the middle
of the sidewalk,
blocking foot traffic,
to smoke a cigarette with a junkie.
Ask why I would rather give you
half a pack of cigarettes
than let you pay me for
one.
Ask why I will die
believing it is worthwhile
to have journeyed to no end at all,
if I have learned
just one thing well
along the way.
Ask why I will love,
every single time,
with all my heart and soul
and mind,
and still thirst to do it for real
the next time.
Ask me to dinner--
If you hold your
mouth just right, I might
decide to GIVE you the world
[though it's not worth what I'm asking].
No matter what the pundits tell you,though,
I won't cut a deal for my soul...
My soul belongs to the highest bidder.
Author notes
People just don't get it, because they just don't think. We've been taught [and have un-freaking-apologetically learned] to feel our way through life to the rhythm of theme music. It's a lie. Get over it. "Friends don't let friends eat cocktail weenies."
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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Choices made
wow your cover alot of hard situations in this fine poem. I gather being used by one that caused you pain is the reason. interesting though & not all men are scroundrels. Again I may have it wrong. But then again we are free to make our own choices
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Not a man, no...
Bob, Thank you so much for reading--I was honestly surprised to wake up this morning and see a comment, :-D I intend to read your work as soon as coffee is done brewing. :-) And no, I don't believe all men are evil. :-) I am quite convinced that yours is a wonderful sex--quite charming, and ever-so-entertaining!
However, I did not write about a man--I wrote about society.
Believe it or not, the event that actually fanned the flame of fury last evening was an advertisement for a Verizon cell phone that now gets TV reception; the ad showed a woman walking, watching TV as she walked. Msg me if you're interested to know why I went on a rant--it has to do with the year I lived smack downtown Portland, on 4th and Washington, and some of what I came to realize through living and working there. I DID go through an "awakening," and--funny thing, here, Bob--once that happens, you can't move through life without that "awareness" walking alongside you all the way. If you're lucky, you subconsciously mold your new constant companion into a sort of invisible avatar that communicates with you as you walk down the street, senses bombarded by all you see and hear...it's self-preservation, really--sort of a super-modified "voice of reason" that you can almost hear as you go along. See, I can't shut it off, my mind, and I hear it all the time--it's like a data processor that offers opinions, if you will, LoL!! I know a few other people like that, and I think we all deal with it in different ways, but if you can't find a way to sort out what pours through your head, I think the tendency is to just shut yourself off from the world--don't be in it any more than you have to, because to see it, to be in it, and to be aware is just too painful--to realize that we (Americans, at least) don't know what we don't know, and for the most part, have forgotten how to learn--and wouldn't care if someone told us what we were missing. They're CONTENT to trade their most precious commodity, the ability to think, to analyze, the desire to ask "Why?" and the means by which to answer the question--content to trade it away, because someone has promised that if they do, the boogeyman will go away. Know what? It's not True....but you DID just give him your ammo.
I watched Forest Gump (for the first time in my life) last night, and the one thing that brought me nearly to despair was when he decided to quit running after three years; he turned around and walked through the people, and someone said, "Well, what are we supposed to do now?" I wanted to cry, because I hear that every single day, from everywhere, and I am afraid for us.
Consequently, I have come to see every single day as the most precious thing there is, and so I do things that seem weird to people who don't believe in their own mortality. I ran across a little girl that was a heroin junkie when I first met her. My daughter brought her home. Of course, she didn't stay, but I've thought about her often--she was the first young person I ever saw that was an addict, and it stuck with me. Two years later, I see her on the street, clean, gathering signatures for petitions. I didn't recongnize her at first, nor she me, but she asked me for a cigarette, and I gave her one. Then I recognized her. I was so beyond elated at that point that I sat down on the corner of the street, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and smoked a cigarette with her, in my business suit and high heels and acrylic nails. :-)
It's too important--and the very people I try to talk to, the very ones I am attempting to shake awake--are often the ones looking at me with suspicion, as though I intend them harm. What am I to do, Bob?
I know....live. 'Put your hand to what your hand finds to do, and do it with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.'
~Ladee
cindysroshon@yahoo.com
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