to the test

Am I supposed to do something?
I should check your message
again. I forget what/if instructions
are. Is there a prove myself
clause? I just
was struck with the

poetical,

my memory,
and my inability to help
myself.

It could be the greatest fact
that I mean well - but
who does it help? Well,
OK, arguably, me. And
you too - arguably? No,
hell, not arguably -
I won't argue.

It's your call,
isn't it? I hope

my words don't seem insincere. Ever,
really, but that's just a hope that I have!
Because they're not. I mean every bit of that
shit. But if you doubt it?

Well, let's just
say, I won't be crushed.
Should I be? I mean,

How I seem -
- I'm not in that business. Never had the necessary
skills to pay the bills as far as others' eyes and
- especially - jaws, jut forward as if to say "I'm
from Missouri!"

Well shit I'm from Jersey. Did I miss the part where
I was selling you something? Go home and make dust
on your plot of land, my good sir. Show thy self.

Should a person give acts, give words, give gifts
wound about with strings, to pull and cling, and
require you to take them some set way? With belief -
or with trust, with skeptical cynicism held hard
at bay?

That's childish. Fuck off, with that, I say, and if
you rode in on a horse, ride off on it while checking
its mouth for missing teeth and suppurating ulcers
- and welcome to it! Doubt and be happy, require
of others whatever proofs you wish, demand them
and don't forget to rub their bellies, see if a genie
pops out. See what it gets you - no harm in asking!

Don't worry about demanding any proofs of me, though
as I said. My hand's not out for a handout. Shake it
if you wish, no need to make it a grip contest either. Don't
hold so tight on your hopes! A bird in the hand is worth
two in the bush, they say. What is the worth of the bird
you crushed in your hand? Withhold
whatever it is you think you're holding on to,
pending proof.

(Chances are,
I've either got it already, or
no use for it anyway!
So we're cool, okay? Why
we must be cool.)

I've made no demands on you.
Requiring, demanding, proofs. I dunno -
"The truth is easy and pleasant to say," I've
observed. So I'd rather (and it's easier)
to be not so unnatural, as all that requirement
requires. Damn the demands of being so demanding! Why,
I wrote my own contract the day I was born, so to speak
- or maybe it was the day I could speak, anyway,
- or the day I could write. But nobody but me
has signed it yet. You're on your own,

with trust,
my friend. I mean
well with all my means,
and with those means at my disposal, I trust you -

to justify ends.