The Reads On Vocal

Oh, I can rise each morning with the hope
That readers have discovered me at last,
And scan my page with confidence and scope,
As though my barren numbers were the past.
I can refresh the page a dozen times,
And tell myself the figures surely grow,
While Vocal sits amid its digital chimes
And seems determined that they shall say no.

Oh, I can dress my little poems in lace,
And give my stories every clever turn,
Then wait to see a multitude embrace
The brilliant things they evidently spurn.
I can compose a tale of love and death,
A wicked joke, a scandal, or a sin,
And watch three readers pause to catch their breath,
While two of those are surely me again.

And still I rise, although the truth is plain.
The public has declined to read my art.
I publish once and check the page again,
As though persistence could seduce its heart.
The numbers sit with such impressive grace,
So smug, so small, so perfectly content,
They seem to own the whole damn reading place
And charge me rent for every story sent.

Yet morning comes, and I shall write once more.
What else could any sensible soul do?
The readers may be hiding by the score.
They may be waiting for my masterpiece too.

And when at last my readership is vast,
I shall remember who ignored me first.

Then I shall publish something truly worse.