Is this really what I want?
To spend hundreds of dollars,
On brand name clothing
I'll eventually grow out of?

Is this really what I want?
To act like someone
Who is the exact opposite
Of who I truly am?

Is this really what I want?
To do things
That go against my beliefs
Or what I see to be right?

Is this really what I want?
To pay hundreds of dollars
Every few months
Just do get my hair done?

No.
This isn't what I want,
This is what the
world of today wants.

Since when is good enough,
Good enough?
Minimum, easiest,
Thoughtless and rushed.

We're giving pennies
Wanting dollars in return
We expect the gold medal
Without effort, it's not earned

Giving enough
to get by, and no more
Yet expecting the best
From the rest of the world

Too focused on taking
To ever give
But a one-sided life
Is no way to live

Good enough is not good enough
Half effort won't yield a full life.
If you feel like you deserve all the best
You've got to give what you'd like.

There's holes in all my pockets
No more money do they hold
My hands can't go much deeper
Trying to shield them from the cold
I've got 'bout fifteen dollars
Rolled and stuffed inside my boot
Got it from a pawn shop
Where I went and sold my suit

The road to where I'm going
Is one I've never been before
I've gambled all I own away
I'm looking for a score
All my life's possessions
Are scattered cross the land
In pawn shops and casinos
In the mountains and the sand

I gambled with the devil
Didn't win, had no chance
Now, I'm hitching it to nowhere
With empty pockets in my pants
A dealer with a lucky streak
And me on my last legs
Now, I'm one step up from dying
I'm now one of the worlds dregs

The money in my left boot
Won't last long when I hit town
I'll find the first casino
And my sorrows I will drown
Be it on the tables
Or at the bar telling my tale
It won't last long no matter
But my soul still ain't for sale

I gambled with the devil
Didn't have a chance at all
It's amazing that the distance
That there is for one to fall
It didn't take a decade
And it didn't take a year
But, I'm one step from the bottom
Aching hard for my next beer

I'm hitching it to nowhere
But, I'll know when I arrive
Don't know how long I'll stay there
Or how long I will survive
I've got holes in all my pockets
All I own is on my back
I gambled with the devil
He took red, and I took black.

I wrote this in the dark.
Because the last poem stripped
from the book binding and ripped
from my chest was not valued at
the utility company's worth; a two-hundred dollar bill is not easily disbursed when each
poem nets zero cents per word.

A candlestick will
dematerialize faster than
a wax seal on parchment -
one that establishes the epoch of
Civil Rights -
this is a correlated falsehood
of fixed rents in a gentrified neighborhood.

The plus-side of *******
the poor to cater to the wealthy
is that when the new occupants
move in, and the stainless steel
refrigerator is moved in, the empty
box is placed at the curb, and with
the right imagination it can easily
become a home for two.