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(don't be) That Guy
living on summer fat, scrounging the cold winter intestines of the city i
grow increasingly malnourished
pock marks and purple-shaded eyes mark my place
in a world of disconcerting beauty, figures
much brighter than my imagination can conjure, i
try not to fall into some kind of thrall, but the fits and starts
of my pen on the page note the failure.
(stay in the race! brush your teeth! don't ignore your appearance while cultivating seeds of material prosperity! you can win this, you can win, you can...)
existing in the endless immediacy of the information age, i
receive contradictory advice
girded in steel and "no means no" and admonishments to
"not be That Guy" i
retreat into meekness and feel ashamed of my constant
stolen glances at the goddesses of my world, i
the heterosexist penitant watch baleful through a window with bars
as Those Guys make their conquests
with much ruder instruments.
(stay! stay the course! accomplish your ends with quiet dignity and respect! you can fight this, you can fight, you can...)
masturbating fitfully behind ice-frosted windows, i
make a boring joke of my words
even this enterprise to quickly abandon for
more visceral fantasies - poetry's a fucking phantasm anyway
a way to make great that which is only mediocre, and i
fail in any case to make any dimples on the faces
of the goddesses.
they sit in their places as imperious statues until whisked from my sight
subject as they are to far more immediate concerns (women are capable of making great artists).
i can no longer resist the urge to share.
