Jamiemccarthytv

Tag: vulnerability

  • 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

  • Well Preserved for the Funeral Home

    Most people will die with their bodies in damn good shape.
    Neatly kept, clean, like they were waiting for the mortician all along.
    A few crow’s feet, maybe a little sag around the chin,
    but overall—good enough for the open casket.

    The funeral director will nod,
    “Looks just like them,” they’ll say.
    As if that’s some kind of fucking achievement.

    But then there’s us—
    The ones who didn’t treat life like a goddamn waiting room.
    We come in with screws in our bones, plates in our heads,
    scars running across our skin like crude roadmaps.
    We come in with cigarette burns, busted knuckles,
    wrinkles earned in back alleys, in bars, in love, in wars in octagon of life
    (physical, emotional, financial—pick your poison).

    Our hands don’t look soft because they weren’t.
    Our ribs might have been cracked, our teeth chipped,
    and our hearts—
    well, our hearts certainly don’t come in mint condition.

    No embalmer can fix what life did to us.
    No makeup can paint over the shit we’ve been through.
    They might try to sew up the damage,
    smooth out the years,
    but some things don’t hide.

    And maybe that’s the point.
    Maybe it’s better to arrive at the end,
    not looking like a goddamn mannequin,
    but like someone who actually lived.

  • HOPE IS A LIAR

    footsteps in the hall
    a trick of the tired mind
    hope is a liar

    #jackiemac4ever

  • Silence is the killer when you look the other way. (How virtuous)

    the newsreaders smirk behind the desk,

    their teeth polished white,

    their words unpolished and dull.

    the world’s on fire,

    but no one wants to say where the match came from.

    they shuffle papers,

    nod solemnly at the camera,

    and move on.

    next story.

    young girls with broken eyes walk streets that don’t care for them,

    their stories—

    torn, gutted, and stitched with silence.

    a thousand screams swallowed by a fear

    greater than justice,

    greater than truth—

    the fear of being called a name.

    racist. islamophobe.

    Or phrases like Resident Alien.

    they weigh heavier than the suffering of the small,

    the forgotten,

    the torn apart.

    the rapists walk free because the culture has grown soft,

    too soft to call evil by its name.

    and isn’t that convenient?

    for them, I mean.

    they know the game.

    play your cards right—

    and the good people will look the other way.

    good people.

    they don’t want to seem bad,

    don’t want to upset the order,

    don’t want to be labeled.

    better to let the girl bleed in a corner

    than risk being impolite.

    virtue signaling is the new religion.

    you wave the right flag,

    tweet the right slogan,

    kneel at the right altar—

    and you’re forgiven.

    it doesn’t matter what’s behind it:

    indifference,

    ignorance,

    or worse.

    the mask is enough.

    but what about the girls?

    the ones they pretend to care about?

    their bodies are battlegrounds

    for a war no one wants to admit is happening.

    the press won’t write it,

    the cops won’t fight it,

    and the priests of tolerance preach

    their sermons of silence.

    it’s a goddamn joke.

    we scream about progress,

    about justice,

    but only in the ways that won’t cost us anything.

    and the victims pile up in the shadows.

    this world isn’t just ass-backwards—

    it’s in full throttle reverse

    marching proudly backwards into oblivion

    while the banners of virtue flap overhead.

    but you can’t eat banners.

    you can’t heal wounds with hashtags.

    and you sure as hell can’t hide the blood forever.

    eventually,

    the truth crawls out of the dark.

    it always does.

    the question is:

    will anyone be left to give a damn when it does?

    (Remember when the U.K stood for something?)

  • 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)

  • Junkyard Ghosts Looking for a Fight

    it started one night

    when the moon sulked behind the clouds,

    and the air buzzed with the sound of something unnatural.

    not birds, not planes.

    just cold, unfeeling machines

    drifting against the wind’s will,

    junkyard ghosts looking for a fight.

    no one knew where they came from,

    but the bastards were ours.

    man’s great pride and inevitable mistake:

    to build what he doesn’t understand,

    to send it soaring into the sky

    and call it progress. 

    then came the orbs.

    smooth as polished emeralds 

    gleaming like they’d been forged

    in some black star’s furnace.

    no rivets, no seams, no blinking lights—

    just quiet, humming judgment

    from an enormous void we thought was empty.

    our junkyard ghosts looked fragile, 

    wings bent, rotors spinning like drunk spiders.

    they moved in straight lines, predictable,

    while the orbs curved through the sky

    moving like whispers of a language

    older than time itself.

    and when they clashed,

    it wasn’t a war,

    it was a slaughter.

    men in suits argued on screens,

    pointing fingers at each other

    while their creations were crushed like ants.

    “defense budgets,” they said.

    “countermeasures.”

    as if the sky gave a damn

    about our bureaucratic bullshit.

    and all the while,

    down below,

    we drank ourselves blind

    under the flickering glow of bar signs.

    some prayed to gods

    they didn’t believe in.

    others wrote poetry no one would read.

    but most just stared at the sky,

    watching our junkyard ghosts looking for a fight

    and losing.

    they fell one by one,

    burning bright as they tumbled.

    our man-made birds and blades,

    our drones and flying dreams—

    reduced to ash

    against the cold, calculated cruelty

    of their orbiting gods.

    but here’s the rub:

    the orbs didn’t care about us.

    we weren’t the target,

    just collateral damage.

    they were here for our toys,

    our arrogance,

    our need to scrape at the stars

    like desperate whores.

    one by one, the orbs descended.

    more silent than death,

    merciless, cosmic executioners—

    the kind who don’t bother with last words,

    just the unrelenting swing

    of the reapers scythe. 

    and when the last of our machines fell,

    the sky went dark.

    we should’ve learned then,

    but we didn’t.

    we kept building,

    sending new junkyard ghosts

    into a sky that didn’t want them,

    still looking for a fight we couldn’t win.

    and somewhere,

    in the cold reaches of hell and beyond,

    the orbs are still watching,

    waiting,

    ready to remind us

    that we’re nothing more

    than ants on the edge of the abyss.

    so pour another drink.

    raise your glass to the ghosts,

    to the machines we built

    and the arrogance that made us think

    we could conquer the stars.

  • Gratitude

    Gratitude

    Gratitude isn’t a hymn or a handshake. It’s a bruise you press to remember you survived. A quiet mutter to the chaos for sparing you—this time. It’s outliving a child but remembering the magical brilliance he brought you in just 19 years.

    It’s not for the gods, the gurus, or the grifters. They’ve taken enough. Gratitude lives in the cracked things: the last drink in the bottle, the skulled wedge that hits the flag at 100mph and drops in the hole, the night that didn’t kill you.

    Keep it small. Keep it sharp. Fold it in your pocket like a cheap map out of hell. And remember, you’ve been beaten but not defeated.

  • Uncivil Savages

    Uncivil Savages

     

    Here we are, a nation of uncivil savages.  

    Bumping into walls, knocking over the furniture, 

    blind to the fact that the room we’re in 

    isn’t even ours. 

     

    Identity? What a joke. 

    It’s a mess of recycled sound bites and half-truths, 

    spun out like the web of a spider high on bad dope. 

    George Orwell’s laughing his ass off in the back, 

    maybe sipping whiskey, shaking his head. 

     

    It’s not the left. It’s not the right. 

    It’s just jabs and crosses, a nice little show. 

    The real damage, the real kill, 

    comes with the headkick you never see, 

    brought to you by your friendly neighborhood 

    Weapons of Mass Distraction.

     Flying elephants, underground donkeys— 

    who gives a damn? 

    We’re all shopping at the same supersized mall 

    jacked up on steroids, neon lights buzzing overhead, 

    propaganda posters hanging like cheap art 

    next to racks of aborted dreams. 

     And what are we doing? 

    800 million eyes, glued to glowing screens, 

    watching, waiting, scrolling past the snakes 

    slithering under the walls. 

     They’re coming for the kids first, 

    turning them into slaves. 

    Then they’ll poison the rest of us, 

    and we’ll call it anxiety, 

    pop a pill and go back to pretending 

    we’re free.

    So tell me—is this what freedom looks like?

  • My 5 and your 5.

    Somewhere uncomfortable

    I’m always five minutes late. Doesn’t matter if it’s therapy, a meeting, or a funeral—hell, I know for a fact i’ll be late to my own, if I even show up at all.

    I’ve been seeing this shrink for a while now. Good guy. Listens well, scribbles occasionally, throws a “hmm” out like he’s adding salt to a shitty dish his wife whipped up. So, one day, after the usual “you’re late again” look, he finally asks me, “James, why are you always five minutes late? No matter what time we set, it’s always the same.”

    I shrug, staring at his overly polished desk, and say, “Well, Doc, best as I can figure, my five minutes and your five minutes just aren’t the same.”

    He raises an eyebrow like I’m onto something. Like I’ve finally cracked the code to the universe of perpetual tardiness. So, I keep going.

    “See, your five minutes, it’s precise. Probably feels like 300 seconds ticking away, one, two, three. But mine? Mine could be five seconds, or five hours. I don’t feel the difference.”

    I could tell he wanted to laugh but was trying hard to remain the professional. He adjusts his glasses, the kind of move therapists do when they’re buying time to decide if they should diagnose you or just let it slide.

    “Maybe it’s because you taught me to live in the moment, Doc. You ever think about that? Maybe I’m just so focused on the now that time… bends. It warps around me like some kind of slow-motion bullet in a movie. Except, instead of dodging it, I’m just late.”

  • Ghosts in a cheap room

    Ghosts in a cheap room


    my old man was tough but I wouldn’t call him a bastard,
    rough hands, stentorian voice,
    but it was those eyes, they were odd in a beautiful yet chilling way , the way he’d stare right
    through me, like he already knew the end.
    he checked out early, left me holding the bag—
    a kid too young to know the game was rigged.
    I got older, meaner, learned to drink it down,
    fill the empty spaces with smoke and bad decisions,
    but nothing ever took root, just ashes in a cheap ashtray.
    then my boy, Jack
    all bright-eyed, all promise and fire, went cold at nineteen.
    like he was never even here.
    one day laughing, the next day gone,
    As if the most beautiful ghost ever decided to punch my gut and keep walking.
    so now it’s just me, an old man stuck between
    some past that’s long dead and a future that’s already given up.
    they talk about the Father, the Son, and some Holy Ghost—
    but what do they know about ghosts?
    all I got are dead men’s whispers
    and shadows that follow me from room to room.
    maybe I’m the ghost now,
    some sober, leftover thing, wandering between bad memories and worse nights,
    waiting for that final bell to ring me out.
    but until then, I’ll keep dreaming of drinking
    the cheap whiskey that almost drown me,
    chewing the lousy cigarettes I cannot light
    and telling those ghosts to fuck off—
    because it’s all just a bad joke , a hit—
    and I am the punchline.