no!

you don’t need validation
all the time,
you don’t constantly require
a pat on the back

but!

you deserve credit here
and there,
to receive recognition
from people in
your corner with genuine
compliments,
genuinely rooting for you
now and then…

as a human being
you deal with a lot,
and as a human being
you’re worth more than
you know—

and if no one else
is gonna tell you that,
read this from the top
and I’ll tell you
all over again.

            And she said, “Some days, I wake up and I just start drinking. Whatever is on the nightstand, right down the hatch, and I just don’t stop. Other days I take down whatever is there, and I go back to bed. I wake up, and I do it again.

            “Then there are days where I awaken from a dream I can’t quite remember and I feel alive again, young again—better than I have ever felt—and I pop up like a jack rabbit, like a spring chicken, and I bounce all about with a mouth that won’t shut up, and I get things done.

            “Of course, there are days where I go out and I forget everything—what’s behind, what’s ahead, and all that goes along with each—and I just live in the moment and I am happy. I might meet someone who changes my life; they meet me and I might change theirs.

            “There are nights where I can’t sleep and I’m distressed; I think about all that’s ever happened. I am saddened by the joyful memories and overjoyed by the sad.

            “And, occasionally, there are those nights where I sit silently and I watch the moon. I watch as it watches me back—and it, too, is silent.”

            She paused for a moment and looked away. She took a long drag from her smoke, followed by a slow exhale. Another pause as the smoke wisped all around her. Then, she flashed her shining eyes back at me, piercing and bright.

            “And do you know what I’ve found about all of this? Do you know what conclusion I have drawn? It is but one.”

            Another drag. Another exhale. Another pause.

            “That all of it, all of it, is all right.”

you fell in love again
and built yourself up
you made it out west
and made your way back
you partied with the worst of ’em
and killed some bad habits
you fought through another one,
excited for the next

cheers! compass stuck straight up!

now wipe that smug fucking
grin off your face—crumple
it up and throw it in the trash with
the hollow booze bottles and
empty bags, the old ideas,
bloody clothes, and dusty dreams—

because time keeps moving forward, dickhead—
and you’re still in the same place.

with every sleepless night
with every day of doubles
year after year of wear and tear
living on the razor’s edge,

parties and adventures
debauchery and delinquency
time proceeding heavy-handedly
toward a cold, hard, clock,

with waning focus and
goldfish-like attention-span
—internal turmoil—
vacated inspiration and
motivation misplaced
—ill-driven—
the older you get

the packing up and moving
and the not-even-really-unpacking
anymore, from place to place—
the obligations, the responsibilities,
the trying to make it all work! and
to get them ends to meet!

the stress, the worry, the anxiety
—the guilt, the anguish—
deteriorating relationships,
and those forlorn, bereft forever,

the wind whipping whatever
it wants, wherever it wants,
—whirling—
with no regard for
the mess it’s left behind…

it’s years later,
it’s just you, and
“who even are you?”
you ask yourself when
you look in the mirror

shit, you think it’s hard now?
—don’t fret, my friend—

it gets harder

…though once in a while, it’s
the easiest thing in the world.

it’s wild—

you’ve spilt a spell
            beneath yourself
that you can never retrieve—

the details don’t matter,
what you’ve dreamed of
            never mattered

so just lie awake

your desk cluttered, your
            make-up fake
redundant as it ever has been
resplendent as you are

reaching for the stars
in any way possible
            without an anchor or a chain

sleeping sleeplessly
            (sleepy hollow sleepy hollow)
whence you find a better pen;

a better man (or woman)
reclaiming a head
            you can’t make sense of

until it’s grotesque in
            a jar—afar and appalled,
pickled like the rest
            of ’em (pickled and pruned)—

and ahh—
            Almighty Blah

finally (really, this is what
            it’s come to?
this is what it takes?

of course it is [you knew it
            when you blew it all along]):

            change.

(Venus is the pentacle,
            and she still watches over you
            [albeit from a comfortably
unsafe distance], her maniacal screams
            confused for laughter—

            harmful and harmless, regardless)