Mom said you were a fool for going to art school

And maybe she was right

It’s 6:22 and your teeth taste like smoke

Though you ran out of cigarettes last Tuesday

(Which is why you’re here in the first place)

 

The talent is fluffed and greased and ready for action

And a few weeks ago you would have laughed at the joke

But each shot is monotonous and you’re tired of fighting with the boss

About softer lighting and

Tracking versus panning shots and

Why a zoom is creepy and

Why each kiss shouldn’t be loving but charged and

You’re tired of watching actors fuck

You have never been more full of righteous self pity

 

Because you don’t capture touch

You capture cold and calculating assessment and inspection of

Another body another

Human another

Person just doing their job

 

You spend too much money on coke and cigarettes and it’s not glamorous anymore

It’s November and school seems a million wide eyed hopeful years ago 

Though you graduated in June

Now you wallow 

And daydream about leaving LA

The land of broken dreams and stasis

 

You nurture your bad attitude like it’s a martini on the rocks that you can’t afford

And pretend it’s in the name of the 

Starving artist trope

 

You haven’t slept around since you answered that ad and you think you’ve been ruined

Your friends joke that 

You are the porno mastermind

You awaken the iPhoned 13 year old kids around the country

They touch themselves to

 

Your work

But not your vision

 

So you wallow

And dejectedly wish that you could afford to take up alcoholism

Pretend you’re going to move

Even though you know that you won’t

And you wish

That you hadn’t gone to art school