Oct 2010
There are people born to be leaders.
They make colgate-white-toothed speeches;
rally the class, frenzy the cheerleaders,
touch the half drunk trucker in the middle of a bar fight
who stops in mid bloodied-knuckle punch
to slack-jaw watch the television,
exhaling beer and eating up hope.
Some are poets.
They take what you say everyday and make it expand;
word-balloons that when they pop they evolve.
Into the universe.
Into the light behind your first high-school crushes eyes.
Into the late night melancholy we all feel.
Into that whistle-stop last piece of air in your throat when something so beautiful has been read that
you will never, ever, ever breathe the same way again.
Others will be painters.
And they will tear open your eyes,
pour them full of color
or monochrome
or neon
or fur
or maybe even popsicle sticks.
And they will make you think about things you really didn't want to,
or know about before, or understand and when you are done looking at what they do--
you won't remember who you were, before.
You'll be someone new.
Someone with this piece of art that clawed you open to change.
Occasionally one or two of them will become writers.
They'll sit down and slither their little keyboard-flattened fingers,
across breast bone.
Snap it in half with the sound of stale, dry kit-kat bars.
Push a few marrow-fragments aside.
Then worm into their chests and tear out pieces of their hearts.
One piece for their home-life neglected to pour out a story.
One piece for every rejection letter.
One piece for the parts of all of their sons and daughters plays missed due to deadlines.
Millions of pieces for every rewrite, every,
Well, we really love this concept. But that small 500 page section needs to be cut.
And they will dump paragraphs of kerosene into your head.
Their next chapter is the match.
Brains will be on fire for their next books.
Some are born to be just like me.
Trapped in our heads,
staring at the leaders,
the poets,
the artists.
Wiping the sweat from our brows and bruising our souls on ***** floors that need mopping.
We'll wash your **** and **** from your toilets.
We'll stand there at thirty something and let the twenty-something kids scream at us
for not taking the garbage out properly and
you were late for this week's shift again,
and if you do that again--Listen, lady, I don't give a **** about your kids or who you need to watch them--you are fired,
you hear me? Fired.
We'll come home after eighteen hour days and cry into our pillows.
Or our cats fur.
Or into or carpet, because we can't afford furniture and
that's why we never ask anyone to come over.
We'll be the ones busy giving birth
to your leaders, your poets, your painters and writers.
Giving birth to your songs, your colors and your imagination.
They make colgate-white-toothed speeches;
rally the class, frenzy the cheerleaders,
touch the half drunk trucker in the middle of a bar fight
who stops in mid bloodied-knuckle punch
to slack-jaw watch the television,
exhaling beer and eating up hope.
Some are poets.
They take what you say everyday and make it expand;
word-balloons that when they pop they evolve.
Into the universe.
Into the light behind your first high-school crushes eyes.
Into the late night melancholy we all feel.
Into that whistle-stop last piece of air in your throat when something so beautiful has been read that
you will never, ever, ever breathe the same way again.
Others will be painters.
And they will tear open your eyes,
pour them full of color
or monochrome
or neon
or fur
or maybe even popsicle sticks.
And they will make you think about things you really didn't want to,
or know about before, or understand and when you are done looking at what they do--
you won't remember who you were, before.
You'll be someone new.
Someone with this piece of art that clawed you open to change.
Occasionally one or two of them will become writers.
They'll sit down and slither their little keyboard-flattened fingers,
across breast bone.
Snap it in half with the sound of stale, dry kit-kat bars.
Push a few marrow-fragments aside.
Then worm into their chests and tear out pieces of their hearts.
One piece for their home-life neglected to pour out a story.
One piece for every rejection letter.
One piece for the parts of all of their sons and daughters plays missed due to deadlines.
Millions of pieces for every rewrite, every,
Well, we really love this concept. But that small 500 page section needs to be cut.
And they will dump paragraphs of kerosene into your head.
Their next chapter is the match.
Brains will be on fire for their next books.
Some are born to be just like me.
Trapped in our heads,
staring at the leaders,
the poets,
the artists.
Wiping the sweat from our brows and bruising our souls on ***** floors that need mopping.
We'll wash your **** and **** from your toilets.
We'll stand there at thirty something and let the twenty-something kids scream at us
for not taking the garbage out properly and
you were late for this week's shift again,
and if you do that again--Listen, lady, I don't give a **** about your kids or who you need to watch them--you are fired,
you hear me? Fired.
We'll come home after eighteen hour days and cry into our pillows.
Or our cats fur.
Or into or carpet, because we can't afford furniture and
that's why we never ask anyone to come over.
We'll be the ones busy giving birth
to your leaders, your poets, your painters and writers.
Giving birth to your songs, your colors and your imagination.
