Truth – Scott Thomas Outlar

Truth is an underbelly
that not many people
ever want to look at.
It sounds good in the abstract –
people always seem to clamor for it,
to demand that they be given it
from those on high.
But when the rubber meets the road,
that is to say,
when the shit hits the fan,
there just aren’t a whole lot
of people brave enough, willing enough, or
intelligent enough, to face it, to
deal with it in all its Awesomeness.
The truth hurts, and that’s the truth.
Most people would rather have
the little white lie
that helps them fall asleep at night,
telling them everything is alright,
rather than acknowledge the truth
of the matter, which is that
everything is not alright.
War is the truth.
Famine is the truth.
Poverty is the truth.
Death is the truth.
But people want to live forever,
so they hide from the truth,
they ignore the truth, until that
final breath when the truth comes
calling, whether they like it or not.
Truth is a destructive force;
it tears down all the fake plastic walls
that people build up around
themselves all their lives.
Truth can be a bastard and a bitch,
remorseless; without emotion, it
trudges its way forward through
time and space, taking no prisoners.
Truth does not hold hands;
it doesn’t play patty-cake.
Truth is a sharp knife;
it cuts with absolute precision.
Truth is the most powerful force
in all existence,
and that is why it is scary as hell.
Truth does not play favorites;
it doesn’t care about petty trivialities
such as skin color, political leaning,
or how much cheese someone
has stored away for a rainy day.
Truth is an Apocalyptic fire;
it is a final Revelation;
it is an end and a beginning.

© Scott Thomas Outlar


6-6-15

Author Bio:

Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17Numa.wordpress.com where links to his published poetry and fiction can be found. His chapbook “Songs of a Dissident” was released in 2015 through Transcendent Zero Press and is available on Amazon. Scott’s words have appeared in over 150 publications, including Yellow Chair Review, Harbinger Asylum, Words Surfacing, and Section 8 Magazine. He also writes a weekly poem for the social justice newsletter Dissident Voice.



Categories: Featured Writer's

Tags: , , , , , , ,

2 replies

  1. Reblogged this on 17numa and commented:
    Many thanks to Raja Williams for featuring my poem “Truth” at Creative Talents Unleashed recently…

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: