I dream of a world
where you're not raging  at me
or ridiculing me to your friends
    for simply  
    my just being me..

Where you're not  throwing me
under the bus  in order
to make things go your way.

There is a lodgepole pine,  
a stick of wood that you fancy
as a staff in front of the crowd

  But like every single one of them--
  it is only a prop  

  to keep you from  falling over..

Wordsmith-formed, your poetic
  carvings
into your staff,   only weaken it

And no one in your selected crowd
  has the courage
  or the substance

to tell you that  the drawn out  nature
of each creative word
only hastens the prop's break.
.  .  .

The weight of the brass,   polished
on your ship, sinking down

will break the mast  at its base..
to that place..  all the way,  down--
the place where you have   c a r v e d  

   your most
               finely

selected word.