life is a strip club

sitting here
my hand cold and damp from my bottle
enveloped in a nimbus
of smoke and sweat and cheap perfume
as fake tits are shaken in my face
and i realize forrest gump got it wrong
life is no box of chocolates
life is a strip club
full of unhappy people
more than a few of them drunk
in a crowd
and yet all alone
before them are paraded treasures
that they can never posses
only long for
and feel somehow inadequate
at their inability to attain them
but the lights are never turned up too high
for everyone might see
the gold is of the fool's variety
and the diamonds are just glass
still they watch
hoping to be seen
for they pay as much for the attention
as they do the for what they see
but deep down knowing
that the only thing about them visible
is the wad of bills in their hands
finally comes last call
when the flashing lights and pounding beats end
and all slip out into the darkness
feeling somehow cheated
as if they were promised more
but not quite sure what it was
just certain that this is not how it should end
but powerless to change it