The Math teacher poses the question:
"There are 10 people
9 leave the room
How many people are left?"

And the student replies:
"1 people are left"

                                                         ­            **DOH!

Hey, celebrate the loser
not just the victor
it's OK that you don't always win
like the time
your little sister could find the answer
to a Year 10 math question
and you couldn't do it
though you were older

it's OK...to be a loser, not a winner always
like the time you argued and argued
and turned out you were wrong
but you just slipped away quietly
and you've suppressed it in your memory

it's OK if you don't have stories
to tell of your victories always
and how others were wrong
and you were right
or others have no principles and ethics
how you are the 90%winner
or everyone else is ******* the planet
it's OK to be the loser
and to celebrate the loser in you
and I don't say this
because of some liberating paradox like
winners start from being losers -
but simply it's OK to celebrate losing
just losing oneself in the loser
Have no other thought in the moment -
*it's OK to celebrate the loser

I'm 23 as of today
It was suppose to be special
Because the father I never knew
Was suppose to come today
He said he wouldn't miss it for the world
And come to find out
He traded me in for a six pack
Some 26 year old *****
Out for only the money he stockpiles
In every pocket he can find

I lived a poor life
With my mom working two jobs
Barely able to pay the bills
Me quitting school
Even though she hated the idea
Me getting a job as a landscaper
At the age of only 13
Here I am working plants now
Crying because he promised

I had to raise my three siblings
Watch my baby brother die
Because his little heart wasn't strong enough
5 years old and he faded
Disappeared like our father
He says he left for that reason
But he was out the door
4 years before we even knew

How am I suppose to be the man
Of this already vacant house
When there was never a man to teach me
That being a man was sticking it out
Through thick and thin
No crutches and no lies
Just a god we pray to on Sundays
And a lie we live through the week
I can never say I'm strong
I still break down and cry
When I see my brothers footprints
Tattooed on my mothers chest
When I see his name on my arm

They say lessons are learned
Through the mistakes we make
Yet I'm learning more from everybody else's
Rather than stumbling and catching myself
I've watched my younger sister
Sell herself for $50
My younger brother go off to high school
My baby sister crying because nobody can help her
I'm lost and beaten down
I've tried protecting her
Yet I'm too weak to protect myself

My mom says she named me angel
Because I was her gift from god
Yet I know I'm the spawn of Satan
Always working
Always being the role model
I'm the most damaged one
On every possible edge known to man
Only centimeters from the cliffs
When does enough become enough
When do I get to rest
And engulf myself in throw away girls
You know the ones who you ****
Then watch walk out the next morning
Kind of like my younger sister
But she has her own life
Her own special "medication"
Her ritual to relieve her pain
While I'm stuck working 12 hour days
6 days a ******* week
Where church comes first on the 7th day
I want to disappear
But how would my mother feel
My brother my little sister
All those depending on me
Maybe this is the feeling of a man
The feeling a father gets
When things get too rough
Backs in the corner
No left hooks or right jabs to escape
Just alcohol and the flight plan
Where nothing else matters when you go
Leave everything at the door

I haven't had a girlfriend
Yet I've had *** twice
I don't know how I managed that
I've pulled my mother out of debt
Saved us from getting evicted
Even started a fund for my brother to go to college
I'm just hoping I can be as good as a father
As I am a brother and a son
I just wish I could tell every one
Through all the struggles
All the abandonment and self hate
I can still smile for those I love
Their what matter the most
Even when we get mad at each other

I  did a gig last night
at the local bar - Moderation Inn,
they called it

and  I played the piano
late into the night -
the usual tunes, the usual crowd:
friends and lovers
people talking aloud
no one who drank in moderation;
couples dancing...when I noticed
an elephant in the corner
crying,  
and I said to the elephant
even as I continued playing:
"Recognise the tune?"

"No,"  said the elephant,
shaking its head
*"I recognise the ivory"

just a few days after Beethoven was buried
the local drunk heard
music over the composer's grave;
the priest came running
and he said a few prayers
and crossed the air and his chest;
the Mayor came running
and wondered if
this would be it: big dollars and tourism


and so they called for an expert in music
who listened with them
to the ninth Symphony being played
inside the grave
but backward;
and then each other symphony
from the eighth
to the first,
each played backward -
and then, duly composed, the guest expert
made his proclamation:
*There is nothing to worry
about this phenomenon
and this will end soon:
it is  merely Beethoven decomposing

Software job
80k salary
Potbelly
An apartment plot
with 20 years of loan
Yo yo sounds

Yea, you're a hero
Many a parent claim
Your hand in marriage
For their daughters

And for your parents?
You're a model child

Deviate from it?
Yes you are the parasite :D

For one poem I shared here at HP
I got 55 views of which 5 were hearts -
hey, what happened to the 50?
OK, I don't expect all readers
to like the poems I post
so maybe HP -
to give readers a choice -
could introduce other buttons like:

DISLIKE
HATE
DESPISE
F _ _ _
YOU CALL THIS POETRY?
WENT TO SLEEP HALFWAY
DESPICABLE
DID NOT READ BUT I CLICKED LIKE
WORTHY OF BEING PLAGIARIZED


and so  then I might get a better view
of each of my poems, for example:

55 views

5 LIKE
20 F _ _ _
10 DESPICABLE
6 YOU CALL THIS POETRY?
10 DID NOT READ
BUT I CLICKED LIKE
4 WENT TO SLEEP HALFWAY
0 WORTHY OF BEING PLAGIARIZED

I want to write a
beautiful poem
to tell you
I'm going to
**** myself.

But there are
No words
beautiful enough
to describe to you
the way
I'm about to die.

I'm that baby in the cradle
******* on a pacifier
With a loaded gun in my face
Waiting for a flash then darkness
I'm lost again to my own thoughts
Traveling street corners
I no longer remember
Waiting in almost every one for death
Like bus stops into the afterlife
Yet mine only promises
An emptiness filled with a paralyzing numbness
Leaving me dumbfounded
Confused on which way I should go
It's the small things in life I embraced
But watching pulses drop
Quicker than raindrops
Has me terrified of tomorrow
I'm scared to live yet too scared to die
I'm in between in which direction is right
Yet everyone who listens tells me
Have faith in The Lord
Give yourself unto God
Yet what do they know
When they can't tell me
What the color of their aunts brains are
What the smell of your soul taste like
As it rots away in your arms
....
It's those dots you should worry about
Bc it might lead to me no longer existing
In a world of people I thought I could save
And put meaning to my own life
Leaving a sense of hope that I'll be ok
When all else fails to give it to me
But a blind man will create a false world
Where only he can see
A deaf man will create sounds to hear
A mute man will speak in riddles
So he can be the only one with the answer
Yet what does a depressed man have
When all he had faded before it existed
....
It's an ending to a life
An maybe all this death has me petrified
To the point I'll go insane
Far beyond the breaking points
Of my own limits


....I'm sorry....