I Used To (parts I - IV) (poem)
By Luke Labern
I
I used to care what people thought of me.
Valuing particular opinions
When you disagree with the rest
Is a sure-fire way to
Succumb to anxiety arrest.
How many hours did I take
To realise the puzzle
Didn't come with
Enough pieces?
I was sure that fit there --
But when I looked again,
There was nothing in my hands --
Only doubt in my mind.
Call it puppy-fat or growing up,
That soft way of living
Is a thing of the past.
II
I went from being too polite
To cough in public
To smoking confidence -- and
Blowing it in their faces.
'It's my life and
I'll live it how I want to':
If If smoking that kills me --
At least I'll leave a story.
I catch evil eyes and second-guesses --
Sometimes I pause, but
Now I live life to its excesses.
(Why would I bother with them?)
Inconsequential. I'm in my own
World, and if you try to enter
I doubt that you
Would make it.
Don't get me wrong --
You've got your world too.
I just like mine better.
III
I know what I want
And now I know how to get it.
No mention of alcohol,
Nightclubs -- or boredom.
Goals with substance
With tetrahydrocannabinol
Netting -- taste to match.
Because ambition is gourmet.
I would often pause between
Lines, and wonder what
Grief I'd get. Now?
I pause to find the brashest way
Of stressing (not myself
-- Because humans are flawed --
But of) my ideals.
(They're mute to whining.)
IV
Let's take this a little further.
Out there, I'm still aware
Of etiquette.
But here I'm free to be
Honest. I've got no need to lie
Especially since we know
That written words mean
More when the writer dies.
I'm a pacifist in violence
But I love what words can do.
Those who know how to wield them best
Can dispense the anxiety arrest.
I've heard some of the criticism
Levelled at me and, struck by
The vague semantic content;
The tired cliché sayings;
The same trite shit that was
Never new -- the awkward synax,
The unsophisticated pragmatic import
And, of course, I've surveyed
The speaker.
I decided long ago that
I never needed to reply.