Selfish
I have a friend who gives me gigs
She/He is cool. I like them.
They’re older, wiser, more established
Have property, have savings,
But not much else
They seem to be broken
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it’s a little obvious.
My gig fairy is not a fairy at all
Not in the least.
They smoke, they drink, they suffer
They wear their heart on their sleeve
But if you check on it, it isn’t beating
It sits there, dead inside, mostly.
I mean, they are alive.
Forreal they are. Definitely alive.
Should they be? I don’t think so
They seem to have suffered a lot
They are carrying a burden for ten
They are encumbered,
they are not holding up well.
Their organs move around inside
They cough, they vomit, they spit-up
They smoke and wheeze and crackle
They are rotting
Dead from the inside out.
I want to be like
“Stop smoking! Go for a walk with me,
Let’s vape weed and eat cheese,
talk about the birds and the bees,
please, stay here with me”
One more day,
just one more week!
But it’s selfish.
I just want company–
Why make them stay here,
Why watch their body weep?
Why keep them on the line,
When the line is barbed wire,
and cuts them so deep?
I guess this is what my family thought
when I came out to them.
This is what they envisioned me becoming
A rotting corpse, drunk and charred
Passed out in the bar, looking for someone
to strum their guitar.
To me,
I don’t understand.
This person, this theyfriend.
I respect them tremendously
They give me work, they have
treated me with more respect than anyone.
Why is this the person that has to be so tortured?
What makes them so broken,
drunken, surly and distant?
They are kinder than anyone–
They are also more selfish than anyone I’ve met.
Are they so wonderful because of perspective?
Or does life take stars like them
and turn them into targets?
I don’t know anything,
I don’t understand.
I feel selfish for trying to.
They don’t particularly like me,
or care for me.
I probably shouldn’t care for them, but
I do.
I see myself in them!
I am them.
Am I trying to save them,
or am I trying to save myself?
Am I pitying them,
or am I learning to respect myself?
I do not feel pity for this person,
I do feel sympathy. Sympathy can’t be
pity, right? They aren’t the same.
I also feel fear, for myself.
I think that makes this whole ordeal
selfish, like I said.
I feel that being aware makes me somehow
more prepared.
All I am is anxious, tired, and upset.
I want to help this person,
because if they can be helped,
then so can I.
I am trying to help myself, but
It is like carrying water through a sieve.
I am doomed, cursed, punished for eternity.
Like my friend, I am a wad of pain,
a bounty of pity. Fuck all these people
Fuck everything
I should stop caring about everything, and instead
focus on myself.
But if I did that,
I would be just like them, and inevitably
Kill myself, slowly,
One cigarette at a time.
Ten drinks at a time.
5000 sex partners overtime.
Am I trying to save them,
or am I trying to save myself?
Am I trying to understand life,
or am I justifying staying alive?
I won’t do it, I won’t kill myself
that slowly, at least lol–
one cigarette at a time.
I’d do it much faster, not so passively.
She/He is waiting for it to be the cancers fault
Not theirs. “Suicide is selfish!!” They say, but meanwhile
Their life is one big cry for help.
Cigarettes, to me, are selfish.
Image-oriented, exclusionary
Wasteful, distasteful, and exorbitant.
Why be a chimney, up in smoke
when you could toke, or fuck, or roll?
Why am I even talking about this,
I want my friend to quit smoking
and a variety of other behaviors.
They are dying–quickly tho yo.
She is talented, he is a treasure,
They are worth saving.
What makes someone worth saving?
God says we’re all worth saving,
Society says none of us are.
I guess when I believe
That they are worth saving,
I am telling myself
That I’m worth saving, too.
Is it selfish,
to want others to live
so that you don’t regret all the pain
you had to live through?