What I Want For You To Do Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

I am asked to do 'this'.
With a request to do 'that'.
I am even asked to rate a significance...
Upon completing those tasks that I'm asked.
To accomplish every one I get!
Folks could care less when they make requests.

And I can perceive how some are caught up in it!
Believing that an attention given...
Will keep me interested and content!
As if what I do is not a sacrifice.
But comes from a natural 'oozing' done...
From some 'other' source,
That's an outside device.

'And...hmmm,
That could be a possibility.
Now that 'that' has now occurred to me.'

I sometimes will read those requests I get.
But no one has yet to answer my questions...
'What's in it for me?
What do I get?
What do I receive as my benefit? '

Love?

And don't say you'll do for me,
What you've requested me to do!

And yet have I had a delivery,
Of freshly minted one hundred dollar bills.
To pop out of a box over stocked.
Not once!

Besides...
I am more original than that!
I want returned to me...
The time taken away from what I love.
Since it took me quite some time,
To find myself quite in love with it!

And not a response do I get!
Except the usual...
'But you're already doing,
What I want for you to do for me too! '

EXCUSE ME?

And those requests,
Get my silence at its best!
Since I recognize...
There is no shortage or famine,
Of this kind of selfish greed.
From Sunset to Sunrise!

It is as 'if' my eyes are 'theirs'...
And will supply them vision.
With a clarity I can provide.
And if that's the case...
Someone should get me 'booked'
On Oprah!