Small Life
by james bezerra
Can’t ever shake the feeling,
the curse of a small life.
No one has a large one
where I was a boy.
A good life there is dirt under your nails,
lush fields of lettuce or cotton. A good truck. Kids.
A bad life there
is blowing up your garage cooking meth.
There are many shades between,
but not that many options.
So that’s the name of the little fear I keep in my shirt pocket like a tiny pet, like a hamster or a tumor with teeth: the small life.
I can scratch it on the head, my pocket monster,
on these summer sticky LA nights.
No one wants to die like Kafka,
but ultimately, as I lay dying, I hope my only hope won’t be to die like Kafka.
The small life can allow for failure
as a writer, as a man.
The small life can afford to be forgiving,
but that’s what makes it small.
The longer you live without success,
the greater that success has to be to matter.
.
.
.
