poem of the day 07.30.09

success

you always wanted to do
the big thing
be the guy on stage
the one who has all eyes on him
when he walks into a room
a man, who when he speaks,
you can hear a pin drop otherwise.

but you know it’ll never be that way
all those thoughts are just hyperbole
something to keep you warm
when there’s no one around
and the world just keeps getting colder
and everyone’s stories are always
just a touch better than your own

the adoring crowd
the fawning girls in the sun
with the light casting on their faces
on their sparse, lanuginous hairs
waiting for you
the dream friends in dream cars
the big nights of victory
on neon drenched streets
full of endless hours

sometimes you’re so noir, it hurts

the thing is you never had
a gauge for what success really was
surrounded by all the failures of the hoi polloi
success was what you saw on television
or what existed in your head
on those dark, december evenings
along the paper route
in those juvenile bouts of insomnia
dreaming the perfect future
with the walkman piercing the night

you never realized that it could
be right here in this cluttered room
surrounded by four asylum walls on a hot street
scotch dizzy in a wine-soaked t-shirt
with no end to the drought
where the stained windows give everything
and elegant tint
and no one even knows that you’re alive.