everything I could never be in poetry

I’m not a provider
she was right
her stepford montauk mcmansion mother was right
I am not a provider
I was never a provider
I will never be a provider
and not just because I’m an artsy failure
not just because of that
not only because of that but also
being a provider is fucking boring
for both members of a fucking relationship
who the fuck wants the crushing responsibilty
of being the one who makes all the money
milking tractors or whatever the fuck a
person without a liberal arts degree does
are ditches still dug? are there still milkmen?
I’ve got a film degree and I work in a library
fuck you

who the fuck wants the hollowed-out helplessness
of having someone provide for you either
that kind of thing sounds great when
you’re scratching a lottery ticket
imagining that magic impossible world
where you’re not just out five bucks
but when it’s about watching someone
kill their body and mind in a factory
so you can sit around pretending
that clean drapes in the window
mean fucking anything
against the gaping chasm of
unlife and death
that frame our brief dance
of this weird fucking rock
no one should want that
no one should want anyone to do that
what a waste of our eyeblink of consciousness
fuck you

I’m not a provider
but I can be a partner-in-crime
I can be teammate
I can be an indicted co-conspirator
sharing the load of
together
doing good work that pays just enough
for just as much as we have to do get by
and then goofing off as much as possible
and helping people and making silly jokes
until death comes and it’s over
fuck that

hell, when I was a young man
I’ll admit, I wasn’t even really that good as that
but I tried and I tried and got better
but beyond that, who cares?
the void before and after sure as fuck does not
it’s the void
then this
then the void
and I swear to you
I guarantee to you
I swearantee to you
that the void does not care
if you lived in the trendy neighborhood
if you put up appearances for the rotary club
where the rich folks go to sit and spin
we were meant to pick fruit out the trees
and other than that
fuck and tell stories and tell jokes and dream
between the borders of the void on both sides
fucking a

greedy fuckers from whatever the Hamptons were
in the veldt of Madagascar a few hundo thousand years back was
a few barely-no-longer-apes had something go wrong
with their survival instincts
making think that hoarding fancy shit
would somehow prove they were gods
and it fucked everything up
fucked it up for everybody
fuck the very first providers
I hope they swallowed their fruit-hoardes
and choked
fuck them
fuck you

I will never again accept
being a dirty secret
an adventure on the side
discarded at hat’s drop or
at the other shoe dropping
oh Christ, that hurt me so bad
I am not perfect
there are so many things wrong with me
but I am real and everyonce in a while
I’ll admit it, I fucking shine
I’m not great at manythings
but I’m fucking outstanding at a few things
while also being barely competent
at a goddamned whole lot of things
and all in all it makes me
a little more interesting
than people who care about
appearances
fuck that

but when I tried to be that
for the sake of love once
it was my fault for trying to be
something I could never be
not fuck you
fuck me

vibrators only work because
the motor is imbalanced
if the motor was perfect
there would be zero hum
the radio is filled with
perfectly polished mediocrity
but sometimes lighting flashes
off in the distance and
on beautiful fucking accident
there’s a little crackle that
blasts Billy Joel to rags and to atoms
and things are actually interesting
and that’s what I am
not a provider, not a shameful secret
fuck me

I am an accumulation of accidents
mishearings, stumbles, mutations
but I listen to every one of them!
and everyonce in a while
I find the thing that is wrong
in a way that accidentally works
you can’t provide on that sort of model
but you can accidentally be funny
you can accidentally learn something
you can accidentally be happy
sifting through the accidents
and finding the funny ones
because he’s not busy
blotting them out
because he’s providing
that’s me
a broken motor still running
a random spark in the nightsky
that’s me
and occasionally?
babydoll I fuckin’ shine
not all the time
not enough to provide
but holy shit
every once in a while I shine
I fucking do

I will never be a rock star
holy shit who would want to be
all that pretense
all the empty precision
of those three fucking chords
over and over and over again
all the fake fucking bravado
until you start to believe it yourself
and everytime you see the evidence that
no of course you’re not that myth
you’re a person constrained by the void
you get so mad you wreck up a hotel
or you beat the shit out of someone
or inject poison to blot out the pain
the empty vessel of everyone else’s desire
a symbol instead of a person
when the void allows us so
very little time to be people
it’s coming
death is coming
why be dead when you’re alive
all the death you want is coming
these fucking gluttons of death
death before death during death after
fuck rock stars
fuck them

I cannot provide
I can no longer hide
I won’t die to be perfect
on the outside
I just want to love
I just want to be love
and when the accident calls for
I want to love
and I want to be loved
I don’t think that
fucking ask is too high

those are all the things
that I could never ever be
thank
fucking
God