Lee Allen

Give ’em what they want

No one wants
highfalutin poetry
anymore

They also don’t
give a damn about
how long you might
have spent on some
navel-gazing bullshit

They want the truth,
not some deep down
in the darkness truth,
but the kind of truth
that fits in the toilet

Not deep but true,
like the no nonsense
of a morning dump,
and what it might
mean — or not

Yes, that kind of truth,
or what you might learn
from a crow gouging out
the eyes of a pigeon
it killed just for fun

That kind of
black raven truth,
or the truth of why 
relationships end, and
please don’t bore us 
with some deep 
psychological 
reasoning

No, just say it as it is,
the sex got goddamn
boring, not because
of daddy issues
or mommy hang-ups, 
but because it just
gets fucking stale,
or because your partner
reminds you of someone
that you hate

Not the one you married,
not the one you would
have climbed the sky
to steal the moon for,
no, that person isn’t
around anymore

Yeah, that kind of truth,
ugly, stinking truth
is what the asshole
readers want

No, not what they want,
what they demand