By Ian Thompson
If one had asked you why
your career in the arts
never flourished, you would
have shrugged perplexedly.
the stub on your right foot—
what remained of a toe
you’d sheared off to avoid
being drafted—a sign of
the madness that all geniuses must possess.
Today, I read about
a sculptor who achieved fame
for ingesting a lethal combination
of psychedelics and amphetamines,
then stapling his testicles
to a park bench in broad daylight,
and I couldn’t help but think
that maybe you could’ve tried harder.
Ian Thompson is currently working to receive his graduate degree in Literature at California State University Long Beach. He has published poetry in the literary journals Cadence Collective and Ink in Thirds. Aside from writing, he expresses himself artistically by creating noise music. He is a lover of literature, bike rides, and B movies.