Category: Lit

I see you
The self-made man
Built everything with your own right hand
Stand up tall so you can see it all
Stamped with your name which will never fall

Nothing was given, everything begged
Long nights on the doorstep of the workhouse
Bread not eaten and another penny saved
Paying off the landlord of the poorhouse

Knocking on the front door twenty times over
Hat in hand, on bended knee
Who can say that they gave you nothing
When you paid in humility

Sitting in that old leather throne
Listening to the music rising from their bones
Why should you open your door to them?
Those beggars could have chosen to be self-made men

I am like a billy goat
Whose horns are old
In a moldy coat
I will not shear a single hair
For I am not of Theseus or Jason
With rheumy eyes I watch the woman on the screen
And tremble

If you have to tell me about how you’re
above all this
are you crouching down to say that
or are you just fucking lying?

The only thing I’ve really committed to
Is showing less of myself