I’m Not Looking For The Easy Way Out, Baby

I’m not looking for the easy way out, baby; I am not even looking for the golden door.

Give it to me hard, coarse, and dirty: give it to me where the blood and the gore converge into sin and panhandling, overdose and defecation.

Baby, I am privileged enough. I don’t need your diatribe; it will take me fifty years of penance just to get to your level of purity.

You think this is easy? You think I move my mouth in vain as you suck on a peach? They didn’t give me a job description, you know. They just said: you can’t kill yourself (or others) and you can’t lie.

Those are hard rules to live by. Please: don’t make it any more painful than necessary. At least we have something to eat.

*

From "At The End Of My Travels" by Daniel Viragh.