A little something i wrote...

Don't feel upset by the way your hair curls, your inability to shave accurately, or your general lack of regard to your personal hygiene.
Don't be 'The best a man can get'.
Don't set and adhere your aesthetic criteria to the 'results' description on a shampoo bottle.
Don't feel envious towards your prettier next door neighbour, for they too wake in the morning with bad breath; heavy eyes; and 3 hours of sleep that feebly powers them to their more colourful, more comfortable and more expensive car.
Don't feel sorry for your neighbour when they crash their car.
Don't feel ashamed of your eating habits – indulge in your coffee, learn to love your sugar intake, share last night's poem with your best friend.
Don't have guilty pleasures - find friends with better taste!
Don't feel embarrassed when your tongue gets wrapped and your knees shake to the beat of your heart in that 30 second love-struck haze with a person who has most probably spent their entire life learning how to make lovely people feel awkward in approximately 30 seconds.
Don't let it get you down when your taxi fails to show at 2:30am and you're left walking with that late-February chill biting your arse.
Don't be paranoid about your arse.
Don't regret that cliché, high-school, pseudo-poetic romantic letter that you posted to your lover this morning.
Don't regret that cliché, high-school, pseudo-poetic lover.
Don't structure your life with a pocket sized planner - "I am not a routine".
Don't feel small next to those buildings, don't feel small next to those walls, and don't feel dull when you're sucked under those glaring lights of that neon advertisement that proclaims to save your life. Don't let yourself be saved with a 'typical fixed interest rate of 5.6% APR', don't let yourself be saved in a mutual 'no win-no-fee' understanding.
Don't believe that expensive, creaseless nylon suit. Don't believe in anything that you despise.
Don't despise ice-cream.
Don't feel down by today's music. Don't feel down by today's art. Don't rely on someone else to save your generation.
Don't want a revolution, be the revolution.
Don't feel sorry for inhaling the air with a smile.
Don't feel depressed by the shades of the towns, those leafless trees; those slate-grey skies; those puddled pathways – all crying out for you to make your mark. SPLASH!
Don't feel ashamed to dance naked on those moonlit streets, to grab life by the arm and shake, shake, shake, its spineless entity and relish in your possibilities.
Don't worry about your inferior dance moves – hip thrusting will make its return one day. One day. Don't feel obliged to believe that you are eating healthy food if the walls are painted green.
Don't believe people called 'Ronald'.
Don't be naïve to those soft furnishings adverts, which tempt and tease your overweight, lifeless body into a comfortable position for television, sleep and death.
Don't trust failed soap-actors.
Don't base your life on any TV family. Don't base your life on any weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarter-yearly, or yearly magazine.
Don't assess or judge your life in accordance to any day-time chat show. Ever.
Don't depend on that alarm-clock to wake you up, that 'to-do' list to choreograph your day patterns, and that burning naivety that lies within you to question 'how's it gonna end' and 'what's it all for?'
Don't take seriously any declarative statements in either the written form, or spoken monotonous delivery.
Don't feel down about those wrinkles on your face, those grey hairs on your head, your BMI after dividing your weight by height (or however it works), the length of your toe-nails, or how good your legs look in shorts.
Don't feel worthless.
Don't feel unenthusiastic.
Don't feel unwanted.
Don't feel unloved.
Feeeeeeeel.

just love it, man.

i have to tell, it's refreshing to observe this phenomenon taking place all over the planet, affecting males in or around their 20's. how bright and sweet they are, and so bravely unafraid of exposing their emotions, the contrast between strength and vulnerability, truth and irony, carelessness and helplessness, the conundrum that is to figure out their way as a man and a human being of worth in a world so destitute of light and hope and dignified male figures to look up to, all that instilled into music and poetry... it feels like some kind of new renaissence. i'm blessed for being able to witness this movement as it progresses.

take my gratitude on behalf of all your fellow new bards like tree, Raziel, stuzzo, Mickey (ok, he’s 90, but, anyways), cutuphalfdead, pearljamrockmysocks and others which i have not read enough to know their names (and for that i apologize).

Release is really my favorite forum.

wow. fantastic. if i could follow up dea's beautifully thoughtout and articulate response, i would. there are some really talented people in here. i definately need to delve deeper in this forum.

i like it

Thanks for reading, and for the praise and feedback. people..And thanks especially to Dea for christening the birth of this new renaissance...*very flattered*

very inspiring, my friend. i think im going to print this out and keep it on my desk. seriously.

I think that has to be the best compliment a writer can receive - i'm humbled!

I really like this a lot. Thanks for posting. Below are my favorite lines.

Jesus, what can I say. This is epic and very fucking good. Prose is all about momentum, typically it either goes up and down or keeps building. You managed to sustain the momentum from start to finish. And it's sooooo easy to read. It's positive without that sticky sweetness, which is ridiculously hard to do. There is a very nice mixture of long stanzas and short ones. It's very sing-songy, yet has a real natural flow.

Did it ever cross your mind to make the last line start with "do"? I thought that was where you were going. It surprised me when you didn't. That's probably a good thing.

I'd love to hear you read this. As an American I would love to hear this with a British accent. It might sound cheesy, but words like feeble and arse are very British. You should record it onto your computer and make an MP3. Put it on yousendit! or post it on a Web site.

Color me very fucking impressed.

Wow, thanks a bunch man

I don't think my British accent would do this one justice to be honest...i think it needs a laid back, low american tone...like Ginsberg or one of those beat poets reading it. Actually, if Tom Waits isn't busy, i'll get him on it

I did consider the 'Do' at the end...in fact my first draft was like that, but it sounded kinda clumsy. I felt it flowed better how i've left it now. Perhaps not..i'm not even sure anymore.

Oh and btw, you're not the first American to comment on the use of the word 'arse' in my poetry, ha.

Thanks a lot for reading it and the kind words.

i re-read this, and epic is really the right word