Just Once

To you plastic hair girlies
with painty faces
and pox-podgy thighs
you cathedral belly boys
with gearshifty penises
and bloaty dollar eyes
all you pampered teeny weirdos
bent on forging art
who would wall it on Facebook
to binge as your prize
and all you wannabe poets
who feel you might
like
to write

Please,
quit college
give up your job
go hungry
stand soaked and freezing
all day in a line
going nowhere
for nothing
'cept a slap in the face--
just when you thought
you might be close…

Go fight the rats
for garbage from a dumpster
then cry yourself to sleep
in a cardboard box
where you've learned to get chummy
with an army of lice
 
Do it
just once
before you even try
to scratch out your heart
by the starlight
the cruelest god made
for poets to write under
and then maybe
if you're lucky
you can bury for good
the slippery dream you began with
and start to understand
the truths you need to bleed
for words to come alive