Jamiemccarthytv

Tag: get real

  • The Calendar Didn’t Change You

    We’re all dysmorphic

    January Is a Mirror, Not a Door

    The calendar did not absolve you at midnight.

    It did not forgive December.

    It did not sprinkle moral disinfectant on your habits while you slept.

    January 1st is not a beginning. It’s a receipt.

    If you were moving toward something in October, you’re already closer now.

    If you were lying to yourself in November, you brought that lie with you—carry-on, not checked.

    Resolutions are charming in the way apologies are charming when they arrive late and rehearsed.

    They sound noble.

    They feel ceremonial.

    They allow us to pretend that discipline is seasonal and courage can be scheduled.

    But character doesn’t wait for fireworks.

    Anyone who truly meant it—the running, the quitting, the writing, the calling back, the drinking less or loving better—quietly started when no one was watching. Usually on a random Tuesday. Usually without an announcement. Usually without permission.

    That’s the part no one sells you.

    Change doesn’t arrive with a slogan. It creeps in through boredom, discomfort, repetition.

    It shows up looking unremarkable and asks if you’re willing to be consistent instead of inspired.

    So keep your resolutions if you like. They’re harmless theater.

    But don’t confuse the theater for the work.

    If you want to begin, begin now.

    If you already began, don’t stop just because the calendar caught up.

    January doesn’t make you new.

    It merely exposes whether you were honest before the countdown.

    And that, inconveniently, is the only resolution that ever mattered.

  • Nitroglycerin In A Clown Car

    I’m Thsmart

    Ignorance with confidence is nitroglycerin in a clown car. They slam the gas, swear they own the road, and when the wreckage burns, they call it a parade. The terrifying part isn’t the crash — it’s that the rest of us are strapped in the backseat, duct-taped to the seats, nodding along to the circus music. And the fools? They don’t die — they take a bow.

  • Council of the Damned

    How the fuck do you crawl out of rage?

    How the fuck do you scrub sadness off your teeth?

    Answer: you don’t.

    I call in the heavyweights,

    the intellectual cavalry,

    and it’s a goddamn carnival.

    Nietzsche storms the room screaming will to power,

    eyes rolling like a rabid horse.

    Aurelius is polishing his stoic turds

    while the empire burns behind him.

    Wilde wants better wallpaper.

    Twain heckles from the cheap seats.

    Thompson kicks the door in with a shotgun,

    mescaline dripping from his pores.

    Bukowski is shirtless, pissing in the corner.

    Burroughs has turned into an insect,

    clattering needles like antennae.

    Joyce is babbling in tongues that even hell won’t translate.

    Byron is dry-humping the apocalypse itself.

    Kerouac is pacing the ceiling,

    muttering go, go, go like a scratched record.

    And Hitchens—dear Christ—

    Hitchens is on fire,

    lighting one cigarette off the next,

    snarling through smoke,

    grief is a goddamn scam, don’t tithe to it.

    The walls buckle.

    The sky splits.

    Ink, blood, static, numbers—

    the whole matrix vomiting itself onto the floor.

    And me?

    I’m strapped to the chair,

    still asking the same useless question:

    how in the fuck do I get free?

    The answer is written on the walls in piss and whiskey:

    You don’t.

    You ride the rage like a dying horse,

    you suck up the sadness like sacrament,

    and you learn to make the end of the world

    sound like a song worth singing.

  • Equality, My Ass

    she fucked 1,245 men in a day
    they called it empowerment
    i call it a goddamn endurance test
    with a participation trophy
    and a yeast infection

    feminism?
    sure.
    if you can sell it
    if you can pose for it
    if you can fuck it
    and file a tax return after

    they say women are free now
    but I’ve seen more chains in lace
    than I ever did in iron
    the old chains told you what you were
    these new ones
    whisper it
    in the middle of the night
    while you scroll, naked
    trying to be wanted
    by strangers
    who wouldn’t stop to piss on you
    if you were on fire

    patriarchy?
    at least it was honest
    it said: “you’re mine.”
    now it says:
    “you’re free to degrade yourself
    however you see fit”
    and sends you a promo code for lube

    this isn’t revolution
    it’s rebranding
    with lipstick, hashtags, and a ring light
    everyone’s selling their soul
    some just get better lighting

    i miss the women
    who didn’t have to prove anything
    didn’t need 1,245 pricks
    to feel something
    didn’t scream liberation
    while crying after
    the 8th faceless man
    and another fake orgasm

    but what the hell do i know
    i’m just a recovering drunk of 24 years
    I guess sobriety is watching freedom
    take its clothes off
    for tips…equality, my ass.

  • BOY, STILL

    Don’t think i’ll ever not be one

    even when the back goes before the mind and i’m in aisle 9 arguing with a teenager about fiber supplements and suddenly crying because they don’t carry dad.

    I was a boy when dad looked at me, rope in hand, the knot a mess of looped embarrassment,

    and said,

    “boy, you’re not very salty, are you?”

    and i swear to god,

    i’ve been trying to earn that salt ever since.

    So call me boy.

    Boy when i’m on the floor, face down and sobbing for jack— my boy, my riot, my soft middle finger to the universe that left too early,

    like a drumbeat with no downstroke.

    Now i walk around with a ghost in my shoe and no idea how to dance anymore.

    Call me boy when i get stuck in the same daydream where jack is on some interstellar skateboard, wearing a crown made of mixtapes and unspoken apologies.

    He tosses me a beer that tastes like everything we never got to say, and says, “Don’t get too heavy, dad. this ain’t heaven, it’s just the white room in waiting”.

    so we just sit there,

    talking shit,

    swapping memories like baseball cards—

    me, the failed magician,

    Jack, the vanished trick.

    Call me boy, with a body never sacred, just a frame for grief to hang its coat on, a joke with a punchline i forgot halfway through.

    Call me boy whose grief has a sense of humor that knocks before entering and always farts when leaving.

    Call me boy

    when i weep at dog movies

    but not funerals.

    Call me boy

    when i stare too long at the moon

    like it’s my missing report card

    and then wonder,

    did we really land there?

    Boy like a lawnmower that only works in reverse.

    Boy like a sandwich made of spite and peanut butter.

    Boy like someone who thought stoic meant quiet rage earns trophies only for men.

    I’m all the boys

    who said, i got this

    then promptly didn’t.

    Who held screwdrivers like they were bones from animals they never learned to kill.

    I am not very salty but i am trying.

    maybe i became man too early,

    Maybe i went boy again too late.

    Or, maybe this is just the rot you earn when you outlive both ends of the line.

    And when death comes,

    i hope it’s weird.

    I hope it shows up in a bathrobe,

    smoking a cigar shaped like my childhood.

    I hope dad’s there—

    leaning against a celestial pier,

    watching me tie one last knot,

    and he says,

    still not salty, but boy, at least you’re funny.

    And when they bury me,

    call me boy one last time.

    Make it a joke.

    Make it sting.

    Make it true.

  • The Stoic and The Fraud

    The Stoic and The Fraud

    Lou came into the bar a familiar ghost with a boner,

    moving through the crowd like he was made of smoke and wet dreams.

    Not a man.

    More like an idea of a man,

    stitched together with sinew and sincerity,

    spewing  something sticky,

    something dangerous. Vulnerability, he called it.

    “Strength,” he said, his voice a convincing needle in a junkie’s arm,

    “is the courage to be soft in a world built of knives.

    Expose the meat. Show the gristle.

    Let them in, let them carve you open.”

    The bartender didn’t blink.

    The drunks in the corner didn’t care.

    ButI felt it in my teeth, 

    an electric fence buzz biting my molars. 

    Lou went on, spilling alpha male guts on the floor:

    “Love is the real revolution, man.

    Bleed it out. Don’t be afraid to cry,

    to ache, to feel.”

    I wanted to punch him.

    choke him.

    Vomit on his terrible shoes. 

    Because here’s the thing:

    Lou wasn’t the real deal, he was an untested idea

    with just enough soul and sinew,

    while I was a meat machine

    held together by duct tape and denial.

    I wouldn’t cry,

    not even if they put a gun to my head

    and said, Tell me how you feel.

    I’d laugh,

    Spit in their faces 

    And die. 

    Lou finished his drink,

    some clear shit served neat

    meant for better men,

    and left the bar a false prophet walking out of a burning church.

    I sat there,

    Uneasy in my own skin,

    thinking: What the fuck is wrong with me?

    I can’t do what he does.

    I can’t be soft, I don’t know that trick.  

    Because softness is a risk.

    It’s a scalpel and i’m nothing but scar tissue,

    stitched and glued together with fear and chewed Nicorette. 

    Lou is a goddamn cathedral of flesh and feeling. 

    I’m a busted vending machine, 

    spitting out rusty nails and bitter black coffee.

    So I ordered another club soda and cranberry

    Something that looks real but is no different than what a 2nd grader would order. 

    But, that works for me, it doesn’t talk back.

    Because strength?

    Strength is shutting up,

    locking the door,

    and pretending you’re whole

    even as you crumble.

    And if that’s a lie,

    then fuck it.

    I’ll take the lie.

    Spoken Word Jamie McCarthy

  • Last Man Standing

    I walk into a bar.

    Not a “mixology lounge,”

    not a “craft cocktail experience,”

    just a bar.

    A place where the stools wobble

    and the whiskey doesn’t need a citrus garnish or an approval rating.

    I take a seat.

    The bartender nods.

    He knows.

    I don’t ask for a menu.

    Don’t scan a QR code.

    I say “club soda and cranberry, neat,”

    because I’m here to rehydrate,

    not curate an experience.

    To my left, a guy swirls a drink

    that looks like it was made in a science lab.

    A woman to my right stares at her phone, checking for notifications that will never make her happy.

    The TV plays a fight.

    Real men bleed on the screen.

    No one apologizes for it.

    I exhale.

    “You good?” the bartender asks.

    “Better now.”

    Outside this bar,

    the world is drenched in apologies.

    Men say “sorry” before they speak.

    Before they order a steak.

    Before they hold a door open.

    Before they exist.

    They bend over backwards, twist themselves into apologetic pretzels just to prove they’re not like the bad ones.

    They’re “safe.”

    They’re “allies.”

    They’re “good men.”

    And in doing so, they’ve traded self-respect for a participation trophy in male guilt. And, potentially given the obvious away, these men aren’t trustworthy. Shakespeare would tell you same.  

    I refuse to participate in the virtue game. Maybe it’s better to let them know you are recovering.  Healing the guilt that comes with being masculine. Some would call it barbarism, I call it, science. 

    A woman sits next to me.

    “You alone?” she asks.

    “No, I came with my emotional support group.

    We just broke for snacks.”

    She smirks.

    A real one.

    Not a “haha, I hate you but you’re paying” kind of smirk.

    A flicker of genuine intrigue.

    She orders a drink.

    A real one.

    Not a “pink nonsense in a mason jar.”

    Not a “statement piece for Instagram.”

    I raise an eyebrow.

    “What, no oat milk?”

    She laughs.

    I laugh.

    And for a moment,

    we exist in a world before the noise.

    Before men became house-trained.

    Before attraction was a liability.

    Before everything we said

    needed a disclaimer.

    A world where men led,

    women challenged,

    and neither needed a corporate webinar to explain the difference.

    Outside, the world keeps spinning.

    The New Age Man is still waiting

    for permission to be masculine.

    The Diversity Committee is still

    conducting witch trials in the break room. And the Virtue Hustlers are still selling rebellion at a markup.

    Last man standing

    But me?

    I finish my drink,

    tip my bartender,

    and walk out into the night,

    unapologetic.

  • Tightrope Act 101 

    I’ve spent my life on a tightrope,

    no safety net, no audience,

    just a dizzying abyss waiting below.

    The extremes tug at my ankles like rabid dogs—

    one side screaming “Perfection!”

    while the other whispers,

    “Why bother?”

    It’s not balance I seek, not really.

    Balance is for the zen masters,

    the kale-eating crowd with too much free time.

    No, I’m just trying not to fall,

    to not let gravity win.

    One misstep,

    and I’m back to licking the dirt.

    I sway between hunger and apathy,

    between the bottle and the book,

    between the lover who stays

    and the one who only pretends to.

    The rope wobbles like my convictions,

    weak promises I make

    at 2 a.m. and break by dawn.

    Some mornings, the rope feels too tight,

    cutting into my feet and bleeding regret.

    Other times, it’s slack,

    a lazy threat, daring me to jump.

    But I keep walking,

    not because I’m brave,

    but because standing still

    feels worse than the fall.

    And maybe that’s the trick.

    It’s not about balance;

    it’s about motion,

    the forward stumble,

    the glorious, awkward shuffle

    that keeps me alive. 

    Subconscious Voice: (what a fucking bore)