poem of the day 12.15.14

recognition

i was playing

jack kerouac that fall

just out of college

bus trips to maryland

bus trips to ohio

working half-assed

at a full-time job

that didn’t pay shit

i talked a good game about writing

but i hardly put down a word

just pissed away days and nights

with people whom i don’t even know anymore

drinking in bars

where i was the only white face

buying hot nike hats

and stale marijuana

loving women who didn’t even know i was alive

knowing where every quarter draft night

in the city of pittsburgh was located

vomiting in streets

pissing on porches

howling into bullshit

trying to solicit 3 a.m. hookers

pouring drinks over balconies in clubs

when the boredom hit

shoving dollar bills

into the crotches of strippers

with yellow teeth and shit stains on their g-strings

always planning to leave

but never going anywhere

stuck steaming like a dung-heap george bailey

waiting for the student loan debt

to start showing up

looking at that strange

hungover face in the mirror every morning

trapped in a moment

of clarity

wondering when

any spark was ever going to strike

or wondering

jesus christ

if this was it