POETRYCommedia Dell’ArteZak Parsons
They gather on pavements where payments are lost and won
They shout at deaf people and smile at the blind - the bad kind of good people
Good for nothing but relied on for everything
You can see them on the television and they watch you shower
Scouring their dirty laundry and airing it in front of you
You might see them on billboards and posters
Sickeningly smiling with suspiciously white teeth
Offering and demanding money in the same sentence
They appear on your bank statement as smudged ink
smugger than ever before
They laugh at you when you fall
but they are the same masked stranger who picks you back up again
They control your heartbeat and feed you like babies
‘Til you crave what you hate
Waiting on the next fix because the last one just didn’t cut it
but the mustard still gets cut by the bigger boys
and the stolen sweethearts just wander home alone
Whistling your favourite song or what you think defines YOU most
When in actuality the music was born from everyone and born to everyone
Labouring on in the peak of winter
They will offer you a coat but take away your shoes
My darlings, we were born to lose
Blue skies never seemed so grey and the rain never fell so hard
but regardless of how sheltered you feel you will still get wet
Because unless you ride a white horse or walk a black dog
The fog will continue to cloud your tired eyes
and you will see them again and again
The billboards and the posters will haunt your eyes like ghosts you tried to forget
You will end up dirtier the more you shower
and the pavements will become so full you cannot walk down them
and your legs will die
and your eyes will blind
You’ll find that life does not feel so alive anymore
The whores will become princesses
and the kings will become tramps
What you once believed in you will fight against
but the war will never be won and it will never end
They win
and they win forever
Zak Parsons is an English poet from London. Twenty years old. He writes to express his feelings and thoughts in what he believes to be the best way possible (poetry).
