EVEN IF

even if

even if you
get one of them,
even if you trap one,
there are still
all the others,
tossing their hair
and digging trenches in
your innards,
there is no
stopping them.

it gets to the point
where the prize
isn't enough anymore,
the damage that's
already been done
can't be assuaged
by one women
or ten women
or a thousand women.

you sit at tables
and they drink
and they talk
and they dance,
and it's the same torture
again and again,
same as at school,
same as now,
same as always.

never enough.

the words only flow now
when i am very drunk
because i have buried it,
i have hidden it away
within my own mind,
because to not do so
would have been death
or something very close.

behind each bird
who opens her wings
is a flock of
millions
turning away
to fly elsewhere.

need

bathing in
the fiery blood of youth,
hypnotized by
window dressing,
consumed by this need,
convinced of it,
driven mad by it,
willing to kill or die
for it.

and then
it is granted
and the work is done

tricked, trapped

the bun in
the oven,
the shackles
hammered in place

"need"
satisfied

and fifty years remain
to slowly reconsider
the definition
of that word.

Scott Taylor hails from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a writer and a musician, and an avid world traveler. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including Vast Chasm, Adelaide Literary, Unlikely Stories, Literary Hatchet and Swifts and Slows. His novels 'Chasing Your Tail' and 'Screwed' have been released with Silver Bow Publishing, and his novellas 'Freak' and 'Ernie and the Golden Egg' are slated for inclusion in an upcoming anthology with Running Wild Press. He graduated from Cornell University and was a computer programmer in a past life."