When I stop to think

When I stop to think

Take a drink

Decide to write

Why do I bleed

Who is it for?

Try not to answer

It is rhetorical.

I have lost count

Of the rhymes

I chose not to use

The number

Of times I thought ‘No more’

Who cares?

Another drink

A stiff one for the sake of merry hell.

The same sad faces

Reading the same sad lines.

Nobody really appreciates,

I never have.

Whatever empathy means

It disappears

With the dawn.

A few sorry souls pretend

To understand

Thumbing their noses

At every publisher’s lack of integrity,

Submission

Is an interesting choice of word,

Never losing the belief

That to be undiscovered

Deserves praise for

The worthiness of effort

The nobility in failure

Talent is rarely mined

Not easily defined

Being in the right time

Is more than placement

Feed me to the bears

It is a blood sport

Pluck out thine own eye

If you believe this is worth

The time of day

It is certainly not

Worth anyone’s suffering

Thank god for small mercies

And pain relief

Self-deception is a pervasive

Killer.