Opray and Frey's Fakery

Thanks to a Crooks and Liars reader for this poem.

FAKE IT TO MAKE IT

I read his book
Coming off a crack run
Holed up in a master suite
With marijuana
And a mad woman

It was just the kind of tripe
To take my mind off
My reality

Its only appeal
Was in the ideaThat AA
Could be avoided
I could dig that
Having been to meetings
Long before
He’d heard of them
And having my own misgivings
With the program

But they were nothing
Compared to the questions
I had about his story

It soundedLike a clear case
Of overkill
To the seasoned ears
Of someone
Who’d seen sobriety

And lost it
While living a life
Not nearly as adventurous

I could see how the uninitiated
Could find it intriguing

How it could titillate

And now it turns out
That even addled
My alarm bells
Were onto something

And the intuition
Of a REAL alcoholic
Was on target

When I saw him
As the shit-sucking
Sycophant

I’d suspected

From the very first line