That Time I Took Out A Classified Ad
How do ideals interfere with our ability to perceive reality? Is a jaded person just an optimist who encountered reality? This poem touches on the experience of reacting to things outside one’s control to the point at which it breaks one down.
It’s one of those days that comes on like a headache,
The wind can’t cool you down ‘cause it’s burning too.
Not brightly, but dull like some forgotten embers
That have lost the spark of youth.
Then it bleeds into night, a sordid sticky mess —
Even the cobwebs wilt and die upon the vine.
Come Monday, we’ll all forget the failed harvest,
And search for twigs to chew.
It’ll start sweet, like kisses perched on clouds,
Then the flavor bitters and pricks your tongue.
Your lust will shift to terror and loneliness
But you’ll suck down every drop.
So you can fear the sleep will never come again
Or try to take matters into your own shaking hands,
Either choice will only lead to empty pockets.
You can’t quite “stick it to the man.”
But he’ll pin it on you, like a badge lacking honor.
Or box you, packaged real nice, and ship you off.
It sounds pleasant; I almost wish he were real.
Then I could blame him, too.
Tim Royan is a writer and journalist from Los Angeles who is currently being cooked alive in Phoenix. His writing has appeared in Esthesis Magazine, The Arizona Republic, Tuscon Weekly and Arizona PBS. When he’s not trying to arrange words in a pleasing sequence, Tim is usually playing, writing, listening to or ranting about music. He is known to go on tangents.
About Post Author
