sanity or just sour grapes? in poetry

This is the life you get instead of being famous.
You might not think that it’s all that much but
this way you’ll actually get to live it.
That’s the trade-off, you get to breathe.
You get to not always have to be seen.
You get to live life not always on screen.
In the movies, on the teevee,
on some yokel’s cellphone at a party, whatever.
Your life and performance don’t have to blur together
very few people give a goddamn what you’re doing and
that’s the blessing you get as your consolation.
There are people who really need all that validation
to look into their souls is to see a sucking chest wound
the need bleeds off their fingers and their internet feeds
drawing in whatever they can to seal off their lungs
but the paramedic never comes
they walk around with a black hole where their hearts were.
It’s ridiculously ugly and hideous and
vicious and remarkable and miraculous and
it’s where the push came from to put in all that work.
Other than extraordinary luck of birth,
it’s almost impossible to get there without
that kind of emptiness inside
to fuel that epic drive
to get everyone to look at them.
Not just their families, not just their friends
but goddamned everyone and they give up everything
to get there.

I lived in the right place a couple of times
to see it and it is its own weird sort of tragedy.
Instead of being famous, I get to live a life
that feels like the better thing most of the time.

Despite everything I’ve seen, though,
I still want it some times but
at least I’ll admit it’s because
I’m a little bit broken inside.

I’m a little bit broken inside.
But not enough to want it that bad,
I guess.
Is that it?
Did I just not want it enough?

Last updated October 15, 2015