Why don’t I go, why am I
Staying away, it’s only because of embarrassment, my journey has taken an unexpected fall.
I’m three steps from homelessness, seriously penniless, and unfortunately, currently unemployed.
I have a beautifully large family and they need my provision, my cooperation. My priorities have now dramatically shifted.
I’m in the early stages of trying to rebuild, living off the charity of loved ones who delightfully have taken us in. I thank God for them, even though it gnaws at me from within.
I feel frantically useless, as if I was somehow tied to my now defunct business; as if it defined my manhood, even though deep down I know it didn’t. Now, I’m double-guessing myself. Confusion comes with the territory I’m running on.
Look at me now, in this great country of ours, if you don’t have a job you’re nothing, less than zero. It doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved in the past. It’s only our current state of success that defines us.
I take mental comfort in knowing that at least, if I was in Europe as an unemployed poet, I’d still have a semblance of dignity. People would say, alas a true artiste, look at how he suffers for his art!
Instead, in my great country art is considered leisure; something someone does as a hobby. You’re only admired if you make tons of money. It’s only then when people take you seriously, nobody begrudges a cash cow, no matter how silly it is, or how degrading your work becomes.
Cash cows are worshiped exactly the same as they were worshiped at at the foothills of Mt. Sinai, nothing has changed since then.
Life without suffering is not the life of a poet.
I’m not going because of the state I find myself in, vulnerable, needy, insecure, a terrible loneliness has enveloped me, a familiar blanket I’m supposed to wear.
I’m secretly suffering, I want to achieve things just like everyone else does. I have goals and purpose, but nothing has materialized; I’m just sitting here in a corner of a cafe whining about my life, wishing my life was in another place.