I’m a small fish in a small pond
with a small wish before I’m all gone
for a small kiss and your big wand
to install bliss through magic so strong
it makes me feel I might actually belong.

Why say you hate politics?

Surely on some level you must agree
humanity is at its best when we're working together

the term politics gives us a shorthand
describing that interaction

perhaps what you really hate is people
and the way they interact with one another
especially when stakes are at their highest.

Maybe you hate how people treat you
maybe you hate how you treat people
both are good reasons for politics

to help us determine parameters and boundaries
but that decision making apparatus has been tainted
by a toxic mix of apathy and unnecessary hatred.

I caterwauled down the catwalk
meowing and howling
to drown out the call of the void
letting the cats now I'm a catch
to be a pet they could pet
but once I saw the miles to the aisle
I ran way down the runway
setting a manifest for the planet next
unable to be able
to sit still on the window sill
and take in what I've taken on
staring at stars or caring about cars
I pick a solitary peak to perch
and look down on more content creatures.

Fasting on the life I'm eating
my mouth and stomach start to growl
I tell myself it's all in my head
but there's nothing in my gut
a starved stomach similar to my schedule
all my body does is work
while my brain is trapped in my ulcer
eating just enough life to survive
seeing just enough light to get by
stumbling through a buffet
but I can't see the food
everything smells gourmet
but tastes like shoes
walking down the concourse of my bowels
exiting my sphincter as my intentions
so I put myself in detention for loss prevention
abandoning desires in my stomach
to be corroded by acid
that burns my heart and exits my mouth
as gurgling noises that sound like sentences
and burps of words
but my only real sentence is self imposed
because my only real words are self contained
in the constipated vise of what's inside.

It takes a strong stomach to be this weak.

It's a time to be outside
so I open the door
but can't believe my eyes
seeing an insect horde.

I should be able to enjoy the day
without perking their antennas
so I foolishly say I should stay
as the world becomes Gehenna.

The bugs tell me to keep it moving
by making me itch
they say it would behoove me
to be rich.

They crawl on the ground
and fly in the air
they make annoying sounds
and get in my hair.

So I ask the nicest of neighbors
if they have a solid solution
but the bugs got them belabored
so they only suggest pollution.

This world is too itchy
like a thick sweater
that I always keep with me
through scorching weather.

There are millions like me
who can't stand the discomfort
making it all the more frightening
when their bodies are discovered.

The gnashing proboscis
of a million mosquitoes
might eventually cost us
the skin of our heroes.

Echoes of words never said reverberate
through the desolate rotundra of my mind
encapsulating stabbing nothingness
featuring the limits of chaotic kismet
until the shade creeps into my eyes
like bubonic wraiths scouring the globe
searching for cravings, craving the search
discovering urchins and serpents alike
in the ocean that now fills my eyes
I watch a giant squid shoot ink
and articulate itself away
swimming to the bottom of my retina
where everything is flatter to withstand the pressure
bottom feeders suckle at the **** of the depths
pervading my flattened vision
swirling in a frenzy over pieces of my eyes floating downward
forming an inescapable black mass
trapping me in its rotating world
until a bioluminescent olm wanders through
trying to reach the surface
its light inspires me to follow
like I could grow to one day glow
in the sheltered cove of my eyes
the salamander rescued me to
where the shade still exists
with feeders beneath
but all those do anymore
is make my sanctuary feel like home.

I don't have any photos of when I was young
because they look like Chronos holding a gun
I just need slow-mo or time totally undone
or maybe I just need to hold onto someone
because I can't hold on to the before
after bombing all my bridges with C4
so now I walk on the sea floor
wishing I could see more

but all I see is myself as an aquatic gorilla
after spending too much time with Poseidon
precariously between Charybdis and Scylla
as pictures make me look more like Joe Biden
while I feel like I'm the one with the trident
but I'm just Janus' migrant
and that guy is a tyrant
because no matter which way he's facing
he can always find someone to replace me.

So I don't ever take pictures
because they give time a fixture
from which to taunt me like a trickster
showing me the different colors in the mixture
like a lowkey Loki
giving me the okie-dokie
luring me into moseying moping
leisurely leading to rope-a-doping
a mirror-morphed bizarro-me dope fiend
wanting to stay in a Kumbhakarna dope dream.

Time is a sausage link
clogging the gothic sink
of a drain we all would think
seems as fast as goblin's wink
so I try to focus on the myopic pink
but always end up finding reasons to drink
the ambrosia of a nova from Krakatoa
the ebbs and flows come and go with intensity
brought by the power of Jehovah
as well as two cameras with which I can see.