To Be Something

To Be Something

in the ignorance
and excitement
of youth
trying to be
something
athlete 
prom queen
actor
stuntman
businessman
dentist
priest
artist
parent
purist
cynic
something and anything
to give more definition
and direction
to our uncategorized selves
but
in trying to be
we can never be free
to understand ourselves
our purest selves
beneath the uniforms
of what we're trying
to be

the writer
says our loss
of youth's flame
leaves us
with nothing 
but smoldering embers
of either lies
or callous death's
calling
but i say
that flame of youth
was mostly
anticipation
desperation
to be something
and shedding it
in our silver age
to become nothing
you're trying to be
is the newborn's freedom
giving the first and forth 
movements
their meaning
and form

maybe
this writer's 
agony in death
was his death grip
losing its hold
on all the things
in all of his life
he'd been so desperately
trying
to be
the agonizing
ironic reversal
of the same infant
crying
crying for life
like the caress of his mother
and a taste
of her milk

at any stage
the freedom
to transcend lies
of yourself 
first
the gateway
to even more
clarity and freedom
like the lie
the melodrama
that life
without lies
is abject agony
when life
without the lies
of what you're trying to be
is a subtle
sublime celebration
that makes the slide 
into death
better than agony
maybe even fine
either way
better
by stripping away
the romance
the lies
of our pleasures
as melodramas
of sunsets
as things of gods
instead of the world
and the melodramatic journey
toward death
the end of the night
the melodrama
of some cosmic curse
instead of accepting
the truth
of the things
of life and death
without the lies
of the dramatists
selling their wares
of paintings and poems
of vivid color
and contrasts
of dense
rich flavors 
of peaches 'n honey
or chocolate chip dog shit 
just as they're taught
in the days back when
becoming an artist
is what they wanted to be

the things of life
plenty and 
pure and simple
very very simple
but 
to be savored
like a lollipop
or cigarette
like the truth
in the subdued splendor
of a line
maybe a verse
in a song
that comes across the radio
every now and then
beauty caught
in the corner of the eye
which isn't much
to savor
like a single lollipop
or cigarette
but at least
it isn't a lie
like the lies
of the romantics
sensationalists
and cure-all salesmen
of the melodramas
of doomed fatalism
or a diluted divinity
eared by free-will
glorifying life
pleasures
pains
and death
as so much more
than what they are
when the truth
of life
as neither gorgeous
nor hideous
more like 
the mean of extremes
of the girl next door
foolishly rejecting her
for being opaque
for being more and less
than everything or nothing
discarding all that she is
cause the real truth
of that life
just isn't
enough
of what you need it
to be