Recognition

I don’t have it anymore.
It’s possible
I’ve never had it, 
that I fooled myself
into believing I did.

It’s possible that every word’s
always been
a smear of ash.
Poured a few tears on it,
watched it turn to ink.

Starting to think
that each minute on stage
was a mistake made in public,
a stumble turned into
interpretive dance.

I hate ash,
and I hate dance.
How did I get here?

This is not to say
I did not enjoy it at all.
It had its moment.
It petted my ego and
gave good illusion;

at this point though, any stab
at recovery seems
ridiculous, an obvious
ploy for lengthening
my minuscule, improbable fame.

I’m the downside
of Andy Warhol’s 
fatuous words. The 
last tick of fifteen 
bad, sad minutes approaches.

I hate time,
and I hate loss.
How did I get here?

I could, I suppose,
buckle down and do
the real work
I should have done
early on.

I could, I suppose,
put some blood
into the ash and change
its hue. Stop crying,
stop dancing, stand still

and let myself 
become a target
for the hard bullets 
that come with the harder work;
I could still learn a thing or two.

I hate this dumb face
and God, I hate this blank screen.
How should I proceed?