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Jack Thompson Jan 2017
We had a culture and a humility
That descended into poverty.
It's much and none.
Desperation and opportunity.

I see the beauty and the pain in the eyes.
Of those victims to this tourist culture.
That has us all losing our morality.
I was a person and now I have a price tag.

Traditions that hold us back as a people
That spiral the young naive and uneducated towards empty hearts.
Forced to partake at the mercy of baht.

We weren't always this way.
© All Rights Reserved Jack Thompson 2017
Jack Thompson Jan 2017
I'm gonna spend my time
Escaping my own thoughts
When I dwell just too long
Everything in my heart goes wrong.

I'm just trying to live today
Until the next.
The things I have to do
Just to make it.

Life gradually losing its meaning
Day in day out nothing changes
Just to lay here under you
Your mercy my displeasure.

Farang
© All Rights Reserved Jack Thompson 2017
You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,

spend less time breathing than contemplating,
jailbreak daily from your ribcage,

harbor kitchen spoons to feed your escapism.
hide the entrance
under stale white hotel sheets.

Born to be an actress
with no script, you ponder this
in every mirror.

In every mirror you inherit this vacant body,
enough money to live in a studio apartment
in Washington, Vegas or anywhere

men would pay for three phone plans,
calf-length black socks and pseudonyms.

A room at the Marriot to trade scars,
connect you again with your skin.

At a political dinner
roasted hog, blueberry pie,
gilded knifes protecting the spoons.

Dog mouths are wet for scraps.
They bark beneath the table,

"Unoccupied bodies, should start charging rent.
Have you considered being a *** worker?"

"...Oh come on,
you never even turn on the lights."
Have you considered being a *** worker?
You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,
spend less time breathing than associating with your own ribcage.
You're an actress
no script, just a character summary.

Limp, age 12, non-verbal marionette.
Snaps her strings when forced to dance.
Clings to the ceiling tiles, like the shadows she hallucinates.
Let's the puppet fall numb under strangers.
Ragdoll to be used for kindling.


When you play your part
You'll inherit enough money to afford a studio apartment
in Washington, or Las Vegas; anywhere with men paid large enough salary to afford your vacant body,
three phone plans,
a hotel room for you to stay awake in
Listening to dull thuds against your wrongfully warm corpse
Invited hoping the stinging could form tendons
adhere together like rubber bands
Snap you back into your skin.
You cling helpless to the ceiling tiles
Watch the ragdoll make mistakes.

"Have you considered being a *** worker?"
A homeless woman asked me,
*"Unoccupied bodies should start charging rent.
Let a man who can afford it pay for utilities.
You might be homeless
but you won't be wasted space".
PaperclipPoems Oct 2016
I saw her
In the dark, in that alley way
Leaned against the wall
One foot resting behind her
One slightly in front
She smoked her cigarette and looked at me like I didn't know about pain
She hardly saw me
But I saw her every night
I passed her and she always waited
For the next guest, for the next moment.
She was like chalk
Pale and stale. Diminishing and entertaining
I noted her dark red lipstick.
Compared against her white skin and black hair it was the closest thing to life that I could relate her to
Her eyes always followed my footsteps past her
I watched her contemplate her choices as I faded down the street
But still every night I continued to see her.
rohini singal Sep 2016
She sits alone, in the dark recesses of her mind,
Memories resurface like a drowning child.
Things never imagined mar her ****** form,
Her mind is retreated, into a world of its own.
She serves those above her,
she serves those below,
she thrashes and cries out, but she never stirs.
Images fade into darkness and days pass her by,
An empty shell of the life she once had despised.
And then the footsteps on the hard, dingy floor,
Announcing an arrival, as unwanted as a sore.
An automated routine, a drugged consciousness,
Then, once more she is dark and alone,
With nothing but her tears, reflecting the pain,
The only thing she owns.
Slowly but surely, light creeps into the sky,
One more day to survive, one more day to die.
Her head is raised slightly as sunrise colours the sky,
Stirrings in the human dwellings, people passing by.
The tiny ounce of hope she held is shattered at the sight,
A ghoulish figure that could have been on the other side.
The tattered hand of destiny, playing havoc with lives.
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