I was not born to lose
            or win.
My life is in nostalgia gone out of style.

Like a friend said
when he got beaten by the police:
This is fucked up.
The world ain’t worth shit.
Better I stay stoned.

The least I could do
 is blame it on the energy shortage
                         the speed of time
                                      or the objective eye of the world
but I know
it is my negligence
                        that opens and closes the doors
                                     until I surrender
                                                  to every
hollow
afternoon.

***

I get tired
of the idiotic pride in being a man.

Wolves can tell the most
magnificent stories about perverse lambs.

Lizards do not know
they live in the Third World,

and pigs
can’t invent bombs.

Sergio A. Ortiz is a gay poet, a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Loch Raven Review, Drunk Monkeys, Algebra Of Owls, Free State Review, and The Paragon Journal.