Bluff

bluff final.mp3

Clip at the beginning & end by The Mountain Goats.

--not fucked up enough to be statistically significant, just critical enough to envy the magnificent, standing in bookstores and museums imagining my work here, here, here; picturing myself in textbooks, this photo, this page, this moment of my life that made me great—fate—heavensent—

but envy doesn’t pay rent. Desire is for consumers, not the consumed, and even english teachers get sick of poem after poem about inadequacy, regret, spite. I’ve learned to fake talent. To smile and pitch my voice just right, just low enough to stand out, just slow enough to pretend these ideas are my own—they might be, I don’t know anymore—don’t know anything for sure—No one functions in a vacuum, no one thinks alone. My justification. My sly bluff over the cards in my hand. Where do tricks become creation? Tricks enough to make you understand

I crave your worship of me. And my cards are blank, white. And I don’t really know what I mean; I just write. It’s up to the english teachers to find the profound, up to all of you to revel in the sound and fill my flattened ego with your praise—these days, I’m realizing all I cannot do

yet. I have space in my head, space once packed with regret and now there’s a vacancy, neurons to let and why don’t you just pull over and stay, extra-low rates if you pay by the day

and let me just learn from the things that you say. ‘cause yes my mind is somewhat suspect but I keep my madness mostly in check; this need to be perversely perfect appears only when I’m alone in my head, alone with the memory of all that I’ve said but I’m not fucked enough to do more than confess

I’ve been here before. Been here to excess. And it doesn’t take much to make me obsess. Because when I’m this honest, this transparent, this clear, confession so easily turns into fear that I’m silly, I’m stupid, I shouldn’t be here, again—

hiding behind eloquence—

hiding behind words

just good enough—

hiding behind a handful of tricks,

waiting for someone to call my bluff.

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