I'm not moved by any strong sense of self-worth or a positive self-image. Its the opposite that gets me off my ass. I'm pushed on by all the people that made me feel small and insignificant-the men that saw some kind of weakness in me and tried to walk over me-the women that left me to find someone better. If all men were driven by such things nothing would be left undone.

I get it now man. They all just want to take something from you. And its not just money. I wish it was. That would make things easier. I could just pay people off and be done with it. But they want more then that. They say they want your love but I know what that really means. They want your lust and your jealousy and your peace of mind. They want your strength and your independence. Others say they want your understanding. But their lying. They want to take you down to their level. That's why when you ask someone how they are they say things like "Times are tough right now" or "Oh, I'm hanging in there". No one is good anymore.They're miserable and they want you there with them. They want your pity and sadness. I don't lack compassion. I have too much of it. I see people breaking and it breaks a little bit of me every time. Their selfish. They hurl the stones off their backs and onto mine. I have to hide from them. I have my own boulders.

Stay In

It's Friday night and you're sitting at home by yourself. You have a hoodie and sweat pants on and you're bundled up in a chair in the corner of your room. Your face is clean and white. Your cheeks are glowing red for no particular reason. But you're always like that. Glowing. You're reading something but I don't know what it is. Maybe Fitzgerald or Faulkner. Maybe just Harry Potter. I don't care what it is. I care that it's in your hands and I'm jealous of how your eyes hang on every word. Sometimes when I look at you I wish they would hang on me like that. At some point your roommate will walk in with her tits propped up and a fake tan and a layer of paint covering up the tired blotches on her face. She's gonna call you a nerd and shove a smirnoff into your hands. She's gonna try to drag you with her. Please don't go. Stay at home and wait for me.

Cocaine flame in my bloodstream
Sold my coat when I hit Spokane
Bought myself a hard pack of cigarettes in the early morning rain
Lately my hands they don't feel like mine
My eyes been stung with dust and blind
Held you in my arms one time
Lost you just the same
Jolene
I ain't about to go straight
It's too late
I found myself face down in a ditch
Booze in my hair
Blood in my lips
A picture of you holding a picture of me
In the pocket of my blue jeans
Still don't know what love means
Still don't know what love means
Jolene
Been so long since I seen your face
Or felt a part of this human race
I've been living out of this here suitcase for way too long
A man needs something he can hold onto
A nine pound hammer or a woman like you
Either one of them things will do
Jolene
I ain't about to go straight
It's too late
I found myself face down in a ditch
Booze in my hair
Blood on my lips
A picture of you holding a picture of me
In the pocket of my blue jeans
Still don't know what love means
Still don't know what love means
Jolene

Whats really driving me

I know you love a guy that's not me and I'm trying not to hate you for it. I can't be anything to you except what I am but I look at him and I look at me and I wonder what it is I don't have. I'm playing it off so well but I feel like I'm suffocating when I think about you. It's driving me up the fucking walls. I finally quit drinking. I go to the gym six days a week. I bought all new clothes. People see me now and tell me how great all the changes I'm making are and how strong of a person I'm becoming but I could care less about any of those things. I'm not doing these things because I'm strong I'm doing them because that's how pathetically broken I am for you. I'll make myself anything to get you back. If you can't love me then I'll become someone else.

Liberal Arts

I sit in class and wonder what 4000 dollars a semester gets us. The girl in front of me had an abortion before she declared her major-then she went Women's Studies. The guy to my left did a line of coke in a bar bathroom and let one of his fraternity brothers blow him. I figure there's at least one date raper in here and I use that term loosely. He probably didn't have to use a roofie. He probably just played the nice guy and bought her a few shots of Sex on the Beach. The method isn't really important. What is important is that he had to get her unconscious so he could fuck her. She didn't press charges because she had too much fun last night. There's an eating disorder. Maybe a cutter. Probably a few pre-cancerous growths hiding under fake tans. It tears me up. I'm so fucking tired but I can't sleep because I have a mid-term tomorrow on symbolism in the short fiction of Flannery O'Connor. Earthquakes. Budget deficits. The Taliban. Flannery uses windows to represent gateways to the soul. Fuck it. I'll go to the bathroom to snort and adderal and suck it up.
Gotta graduate.
Gotta get a good job.
Gotta be the man.
Money
Cars
Pussy
And the chick next to me she's
Gotta lose weight
Gotta make her ex-boyfriend jealous
Gotta find her husband
Houses
White-Fences
Babies
We go home some weekends and our parents ask us how classes are going.
"Not too bad."
Go upstairs. Lock the door. Hide our faces under our pillows.

Pearl Harbor

Hey Pop. It’s been over a year now. I flew back to Boston for your funeral. I was the only one of my brothers to make it. I’m sure you didn’t mind. They were all pretty busy now and besides they never got you like I did. I’m sure you didn’t want a bunch of people crowded around your casket blubbering. I didn’t cry at your wake or your funeral. I didn’t want to look weak. You were probably proud of me for that. I guess being stoic is in the blood. I’m not that tough though. I wept later on in my room. I know you saw me but I hope you didn’t mind too much. My dad cried for you. That’s more emotion then you ever gave him. He’s too good of a man to buy into the bullshit that you and I buy into.
I only have a few memories of you. Like how you used to roll up your right pant leg just above your knee and let me see your scars from the War. Long and pink-like lighting bolts shooting down your thigh. I never had battle scars to show you but I do now. A nice one inch gash on the back of my head. I didn’t get it storming a beach or warding off global fascism like you. I didn’t fight Japs or the German wehrmacht, just some frat guys in pink Polos and ass high khakis. Five of them and one of me. I bet you would have liked those odds. I’m not real sure who started it. I don’t think it was me. I’m too quiet for that but I was drunk and I have some of your mean streak in me-some of that blood that can’t walk away. There wasn’t much honor in it. Just fists and boots on my face and ribs. I got worked over pretty good. I woke up a few hours later on the pavement and as I wiped the blood and vomit off my face with my ripped shirt I looked up at the sky and part of me felt like you were proud of me for taking a stand. Whatever I was taking a stand for. You had Okinawa. I have drunken frat brawls. We take the wars that are given to us.
How am I supposed to live until my real fight comes Pop? You didn’t have to wait like me. Tojo attacked Pearl Harbor and you were good to go. I’m trying to be patient. You used to tell me stories about how you were the arm wrestling champion on your ship during the war. Sometimes I feel like I should have been on that ship with you. People now they don’t’ understand men like you and I. I need a war. I need a proving ground. It’s not here. There is no glory in Facebook or the Real World or iPhones. I can’t find any honor in Jager bombs and bar sluts. Nothing. I need to be a champion like you.