No one told me that the taste of defeat
isn't bitter
or sour
or acidic,
but embarrassingly cloying.

The water was murky
with ashen clouds
and my thoughts were overcast
with fears of nakedness.

Once when I was at an age at which I was
embarrassingly old enough to have known better,
I feigned "coolness"
by taking drags out of the end of my pen
like it was one of those foreign, long, skinny black cigarettes
that was all the rage in some exotic country like Italy.

But I ****** too hard,
and instead of sampling a taste of ink-flavored air,
I dove headfirst into the real thing--

which is to say,
that I tried not to laugh for the next few days
lest anyone catch a glimpse of my ink-stained tongue
and think that my love for calamari
was anything other than platonic.

I'd like to work up the courage to ask you
if it is a cultural thing
to dress like a plushy carrot
that I'd like to passionately julienne
and sprinkle on my bed sheets.