It's dangerous when your biggest role models
spent their lives
drinking, smoking and gambling
but maybe it's worth it
if it inspires you to write
something
that is at least 1 % as great as their works
cause 1 % of their greatness
is ******* amazing

I've been acquainted with the lady in the blue dress.
More than once.
She's the tall, little blonde girl with the dark hair.
Standing by the bar you frequent when you have nowhere else to go.
She's pretty. Sometimes.
(Though it really need not matter)
You buy her a drink, hoping she'll exchange it for temporary lust.
A supplement for what you've lost.
I've been acquainted with the lady in the blue dress.

I know the horror
how you can't undress
without feeling like
a ******* mess.

There's got to be something
more than this,
just write until
your thoughts aren't as heavy.

Everyone glances
but nobody reads:
Pour your emotions
into a glass that
nobody drinks.

There's got to be something
more than
vulnerable words in vain:
a medicine
that increases the pain.

I know the horror
how you can't reveal
the fullest extent
of how you feel.

There has to be something
more than a glance,
to help you feel heard;
to validate your world.

Just learn to write
and let it all go,
even if nobody notices
or nobody knows.

Because there is something
more than this.

Night Vision
I see them still,
From time to time,
Their goofy smiles,
Their laughing eyes.
Still hear their *******,
Their growled complaints,
Their farts in the night,
from five bunks down.
The relentless joke telling,
The brotherly jabs.
Still see their sad empty eyes
When no mail from home arrived.

Oh and the lists of things
That they would do,
When back they'd go,
Into the World,
Added to daily, always growing.
"Get that new Camaro,
Set them tires on fire!",
"Cruise the strip back home
and pick up chicks."
"Put on my blue Class A,
And strut down the block for all to see."
"Find that foxy girl from English class,
and make her my wife".
"I'd tell my mean old man,
to actually *******!"
"I'd find that bully from back in school,
and teach that fool a thing or two."

We were but boys,
Too eager and green,
Posturing and playing at being men.
What I wonder, would they have become,
Given the chance to grow to a man?
Young lives cut short by ballistic pain.
So now still they linger, boys they remain,
Night visions left in the mud and the rain.