27

I live my life from
paycheck
to
paycheck
and in exchange for services
rendered
I get the next day
which means
I'm
barely
able
to pay the
bills
and no matter how many tomorrows I get
they go so
fast
that
before the check comes the money's spent
and all I got to show for it
is a kitchen drawer full of yesterdays that I can do nothing with.
I've
applied for assistance but I only get help sporadically which prompts
me to stop
asking.
I give up waiting to saved by someone who
breathes
and bleeds
and
fails
just like me; gave up on looking for someone
else's light to guide me out, never been one for waiting anyway.
I
decided that since I'm on borrowed time it's best I hurry up and live
this life now before someone comes back around asking for the money. I
need to act like the money's here instead of writing a check I can't be
sure I can cash because I'm still sore from the last time I found out I
was wrong.
From now on all bets are off, and nothing is anything
anymore but if you need to know anything about me, know this: I come
from a place of not
many
but
few
I come from a place of no better than
you,
and that was the
last
part of this poem that rhymes.
I will no
longer write to recreate what you see
when you do take notice
because
sometimes even when I ask you and you tell me
I
don't
know
what
you're talking about.
I
will spend my life from this moment in prison behind blue bars in a white cell
receiving a temporary pardon or
better yet
some time in the yard every
time I push out a real piece; when I give you some soul food
as opposed
to
knee jerk chicken.
From now on I am the 3rd word in a sentence of
sixteen and I care not if you forget me so long as you don't let the
thought perish. I will give a damn and keep some on me in case you need
one. If I find out I know more than you then
I
will
see
to
it
that we are on
even keel before our time together is done.
I will quit
waiting for
someone to love me because when you think about it, if you don't love
you enough to feel good about being alone then
you are cheating on
yourself with
everyone
you
think
you're giving your heart to,
and I for
one am tired of being an adulterer.
I will live my days as a slave to
the idea of my own freedom, wearing the whelps on my back with pride.


So if you need to know anything about me look at yourself, there is
some of me in all of you, and vice versa. I will pay what I owe, for
what I have I done, and at the end of day when my time is nigh I'm
checking out in cash, not credit. I'm not promising anything other than
nothing and five seconds from now because that is all I have. Don't ask
me about tomorrow, or further. I got no future. I've already lived it.
Out of all I've got left I've got the past, and Lord knows I have
enough trouble letting that go. Out of all I have left, what I have,
what I know I have is today; today works.