Live Unhated
Bottle of salty ocean
Take seventeen years worth of pirate slang
Add a dash of 826 Valencia
Read the first ten pages of Moby Dick
Purified to the max
In a deep rinse of kraken blood
And scurvy
Stunning all the onlookers for miles around
Nearly blinded
McDonald’s thought you were hated enough
To make the Happy Meal Toy lineup
On your little windup Spanish Galleon
Adrift in 100% Apple juice
Poked until chipped
Mystery lying just beneath the surface
A solid blue mannequin instead of bones
A sculpt, not a skull
Leather beaten
Tanned
Pulled
To fit the consumer-based mold
Doesn’t matter if it hurts
Pebbles sell if you’re a smooth enough talker
Keeping track of the time and singing along to the same whistle in your hollow
Noggin
So wide and empty a tornado goes
Silent in between your ears
No I’m not calling you stupid not by any means
I just want to know why you’re so gullible as to believe
That I was there for you
I’m not your goddamn scratching post
Let me wither in room temperature
Connect the dots to make a wish
But you’ve got a bit worse than a bald spot at this point
And the handkerchief is starting to chafe
Consciousness sliding round like a badly made
Cruise liner dining room
Free mimosas at ten
If you can stomach being around your friends for more than an hour
But I said too much
Please leave
Next?
Next to me was no one
Then you were
But I never asked to be the subject of your pity
I don’t even like it when I’m the subject of your still life.
It’s only because when I hold my breath
I look as if I’m ready
To be born amongst the sea
And forgive you politely
Saying
“I was never much of a poet anyway”
Any further questions?
No?