A Smoke In The Cold Night - Poem

A disgruntled worker leaned up against the cement wall behind the yogurt shop, smoking his cigarettes as the new guy sat on the curb by the dumpster.

“Bukowski was full of shit.”

The worker said to the cold air.

“Saying he banged every girl who read his poems.

Fuck that.

No poet gets that much pussy.

Or any pussy, for that matter.

Guy wrote a perverted poem and got some success with it.

So decided to write a bunch of dirty shit.

That’s like Poe.

He played to the audience.

Insanity sells, so be insane.

Sex sells, so be perverted.

Bullshit man. It’s all bullshit.

People got their heads so far up their asses when they take a shit you think they’re throwing up.

Fucking Christ, I’ll tell ya, if you ever find a man who isn’t a two-faced self-righteous hypocrite who lies more than a blanket on a bed, that’s like finding the Holy-fucking-Grail.

Man, some guy like Indiana Jones can find the Grail, and they will put it in a museum.

But no one will ever put the honest man out there.

Cause they can’t find one.

Everyone is full of shit.

And no one acts like they are.

That’s the fucked up part of it all.

Everyone is a goddamn saint.

Everyone is living the right life.

Everyone is reliable.

No one is.

I’m telling you, man, no one is.

The only person you can rely on in this world is you.

Everyone else, just be happy that they are there.

I swear the more I learn about this world, the more I start to think,

Fuck everybody.

I’m looking out for me and my family.

I’m getting mine and I hope that God or whoever the hell runs this place, don’t mind too much.

All the other jackasses out there can suck a fucking dick.”

A co-worker opened the door and called out to the two.

“I got some pizza.

I’m gonna eat inside.

It’s too cold out here.”

The smoker acknowledged, “Yeah, cool.”

“Whose Butgosky?”

The new guy asked, still sitting on the curb.

“Nobody, I guess.

What time are you here till?”

“Eleven.”

“That’s not bad.

If you’re too cold, you can go inside.”

“Nah. I’m fine.”

For a moment nothing was said, between the two, as though they allowed the cold air to make a few silent remarks.

The smoker kicked his cigarette into the ground and continued,

“Do what you love to do.

Fuck money.

Fuck fame.

Do whatever makes you happy.

If you like something, then do whatever the fuck you can to do it.

You know?

Fuck the rest.

Cause that shit you like, whatever the hell it is, that shit is the real thing you gotta do.”

He looked up from the now-destroyed cigarette.

“How old are you?”

“23.”

The new co-worker answered and tried his best to not show his body was starting to get cold.

“Ah, please, you’re a fucking kid.”

“A lot of people seem to think that, but I don’t feel it.”

“Hey, let me tell you.

You are still young enough to get out of this shithole.

Making yogurt every goodamnn day for the rest of your life.

Fuck that shit.

You do what you gotta do to get the fuck out of this shithole.

Cause I tell you what….

They will keep you as long as you do the fucking job.

You think they want you to get more money doing something that you like?

Hell no!

That is why you do what you gotta do to get out of this shithole.

You’re young enough where you can look back on your life and tell people about the time you worked here.”

“Working until eleven for yogurt.”

“That’s not a life.

Find a job that can give you a career. A real career.”

“Ok.”

“I’m telling you this because the others here won’t tell you that.

Like Little Miss Pizza inside.

Girl has been here her whole life, ever since high school.

She was here before the damn manager was.

And she won’t leave.

They even fired her a few times, but she came back anyway after some pleading.

This job is now all she knows.

It is who she is.

She has the yogurt running through her goddamn veins like it was blood.

That is about as sad as the fucking Titanic.

And the real sad part is she doesn’t think it is sad.

She takes pride in doing this shit.

Just don’t ever become your job, no matter how much your job wants you to.”

“What about you?”

“The world fucking gave up on me a long time ago.

It is why I am stuck doing this fucking shit, scooping the different flavors.

Cleaning the machines, knowing the difference between a banana red raspberry swirl and a banana raspberry swirl.”

The co-worker acknowledged the trivial matter he was told about during his training.

“Yeah. I don’t get that.”

“Nobody fucking does.”

He continued his train of thought.

“Look, I wasn’t a good kid growing up, and now I am paying for it.

If you knew the shit I did when I was younger, you wouldn’t listen to a word I said.

I was one of those two-faced hypocrites.

Now, I gotta deal with the shit that I started.”

“You can always leave too, you know.”

“No, I can’t.”

“If you are smart enough to point out there is a way out for me, then you must be smart enough to make a way out for yourself.”

The smoker paused for a second as if he had given the same speech a million times yet had never heard that answer before.

“I guess so.”

They both started to shiver gently.

The smoker instructed,

“Come on, let’s go back inside. It’s too cold to be out here for this long.”