a self-portrait

a self-portrait 

Idk why 

when people in LA see me

at the poetry readings

they think they know 

what I’m thinking,

as if in one breath 

we can give a voice to the voiceless

and on the exhale 

tell me,

“It’s no longer your time.”

A actor on a podcast

thought that the goal of life

was to remain interesting,

I’d counter that 

and say 

we should be interested:

IN THINGS,

and I’ll let 

PERCEPTION

fall

where it may.

If life 

is based off of your experience,

then I’d say 

we have it

pretty good,

or is that your journey 

has to be harder than mine

so that you people

can justify 

your pathetic excuse

for why 

you haven’t been writing? 

There’s a transformation that begins

when we come to know

that we’re not the ones in control, 

an evolution to see man 

as the child of God,

and it’s when 

we begin playing parent

that our future 

was written in 

(1 John 2:18);

but what’s life

without a little anarchy?

Take Picasso,

his dad stopped painting

when Pablo was only 13,

because the Son

had surpassed the Father

and it leaves me 

to wonder

if this 

was a repetition 

of the trinity;

a death and rebirth annually 

from 15 to 90,

you know

his topsy-turvy paintings

(Synthetic Cubism),

but I prefer 

the Blue Period,

a somber creation of self

in scenes unknown by him

and the fact is

when you learn to write

a thought 

is a manifestation 

of fingers on keys,

a timeline of memory

becomes your past

and my future

is the place where I’ll be,

in his early years

he 

burned his own work

inorder to keep warm,

people try to be like a previous story

as if the ones that came before

knew something 

that today 

is only imaginary.

And how 

do you think I see myself?

A pen painting

white washed

charcoal sketch,

a caricaturization of a time

when what I said I’d do

was almost 

just about

close to being true,

an imitation away

from being one

that’ll be known

as a man being 

all his own.