Just Once

To you plastic hair girlies with painty faces  
& pox-podgy thighs  
you cathedral belly boyz with gearshifty penises  
& bloated dollar eyes  
all you pampered teeny weirdos  
bent on stealing art  
who would wall it on Facebook
to binge as your prize  
& all you wannabe poets  
who feel you might  
like  
to write  
  
Please,  
quit college  
give up your job  
go hungry  
stand soaked & frozen  
all day in a line  
going nowhere  
for nothing  
'cept a slap in the face--
just when you thought  
you might be close…  
 
Go fight the rats  
for garbage from a dumpster  
before you cry yourself to sleep  
in a cardboard box  
where you've learned to get chummy  
with an army of lice  
  
Do it  
just once  
before you even try  
to scratch out your heart  
by the starlight  
the cruelest god made  
for real poets to write under  
& then maybe
if you're lucky  
you can bury that slippery dream you began with  
& start to understand  
the truths that poets bleed  
for their words to come alive