Can I Write

Can I Write
By Don Larson
July 2013

Can I write?
when I'm uptight and tied up by my mind,
Winded tight, find I'm taut like a breakable rope
Though unlike in fight club I'm not making soap
I did beat my face up when I was unable to cope
Then stablized, groping, holding onto a Friend
Survived, but I realize these pills I've been fed
Can't kill all the illness that's still in my head
can't quell the inevitable I'm set to regress
Just stuck with the mess unless something corrects
Itself well then I guess I must cuss and confess
The answer I'm left with is
Can I write?

Fuck yes

I mean to meet the demand
I place on myself
See my face understand
I can't shelve it
Delve into it more and before I
Will ever let this pen leave my hand
I'll sever my manhood for the sake
Of my need to be clever and rant and I
Can't take a seat I will stand
And deliver my hands will not quiver
And if we're in need of a new simile
You can consider me like your new naval commander
Ike on the sea
Abandoning sanity we can give it the slip and
Begin landing jets on unqualified ships

Come call the MPs! can somebody run in
And punish this bum for wrecks he'll be causing

Just pause it and check,
the deck's getting wider
The fighters will land
Despite your prediction they would all be destroyed and
bear with me a minute, I'll share what the point is
I can't do jack shit if I'm scared and avoid this
Imperative need to believe and ignore
The whole chorus of people that laughs at the news that
A passenger cruiser can do more than is standard
And loosen the shackles choose to transform
in fact act as a carrier capable able
to handle the landing of harriers
And if it seems these comparisons
begin wearing thin,
I'm prepared in my garrison
With paper and pen
For anyone who cares enough to come make it end

Because I'm done suffering under
Assumptions I've made
That I've handed myself
Under the mantle of self preservation
Entrenched in the safeness of sameness
Some say that you play with the hand that you're dealt
And if you get dismantled that's just part of the game
But wait there's a Man with an ace up His sleeve and
If you fold like you're told He'll start using your seat
Defeat fate at a pace Usain Bolt couldn't beat
You see the unreal become seizable, even easily feasible
But evil's deceiving, convinced you that since you're receiving
You're poor in whatever you're meant to be giving
And believing in that lie's a sentence to live in
A prison of fear and your own indecision

But listen and hear me, He's blown up the blisters
Shown us resitance is futile
Shit's brutal it's true that it hurts
But I refuse to let feelings impede me
like dirt in an AK
I know it still works
So we're throwing away
These emotions

And though it will irk me
You're going to nay-say
Devotion to hopelessness lurks in your brain 'til
You're going berserk they've declared you insane
And it scares me that I might turn into you one day
Disputing the truth until I'm blue in the face
Excusing my uselessness the foolish disgrace
Refuse to be used 'cause I don't feel safe
Fear's my new muse and it's going to stay
Unless I choose to recuse my way out of this case
Clear the slate, waive the complaints
For when I am down to the grave
Until then I am bound to behave like a man

Write while I can
Then try again when I can't