I know what it means to give in.
I've already tasted the warm beer,
the sticky counters of a mid day bar on the breath of a tall man.
I've heard of sorrow's dependence and
I see what it turns us into.
Stigmatized and scented of sidewalk's old gum,
Invisible to the naked eye, the seeing eye, the breathing eye.
How the folds of skin come faster-
The voice- crackled like old tinfoil used again and again.
I can picture it all, I can see it in the mirror.
I admit to the fear of it. I admit to the dread I so detest in the faces of privileged youth;
Washed up, Burned out.
In high school a concept I easily accepted as being applied to myself.
But as my cycle of living and dying draws to its middle ground-
I feel it, the horror. The relief in the knowledge that I'm not like that. I'm not like that...
I carry my voice like church bells and feel myself grin at this mantra,
Even as i taste hesitation's sour malingering bite.