Prince charming
is a wastrel
living off of
bummed cigarettes
and on
borrowed couches,
forever unwanted,
terminally free
and he's searching
for his Princess
hidden under the beds
and needles
but how does one fight
a dragon when the
dragon is trapped inside your
ribs
and so
and so
and so our prince's sword
and our prince's heart meet
in an embrace that puts the
love
he has for the princess
to shame.

A cheerleader
once wrote me a
love song
and it had lots of
horse imagery
and it turned out
that she had lifted
the song from some kids
tv show
but none of that mattered
because she wasn't a cheerleader
quite yet
and I wasn't educated enough
to scoff at plagiarism
when someone was trying
to show that they cared

I saw some
sand hill cranes
on the soccer field
on my way into campus
today and the male
with all the fire on his head
was dancing in a circle
to get the attention
of the female who
was too busy rooting
in the grass to be
concerned
and the poor guy
looked like such a
fool
all long legged
and beautiful
that we all mistook
him for a lonely
college freshman
except lovesick college freshmen
don't get to fly off at the end of
the day

but sand hill cranes
don't get to fall in love
either
as far as we know
so maybe today it's still
one notch better to be
human and
lonely

I had a great aunt
named Karen
"had" being the
operating term here
and she exists in our
family as a cautionary
tale
because she tried
to pray away
her cancer instead of
seeking treatment
and she died
eventually
and some called it
an act of mercy
and some called it
a **** shame
but either way
at the end of the day
the cancer
stopped.

There's more
static in the air than
usual
and the faintest
signal is trying to
get through
to our novelty Garfield radio
but I'm not sure you want
to hear it
or if we're just gonna
watch TV instead

I saw the sky falling
but it didn't make a sound
seeing as you weren't around
to hear it

I'm writing
poetry
instead of
writing notes
for Econ
because I
derive higher
marginal utility
from poetry
than from
notes about
consumer surpluses.

See?
I've been paying attention.
Look at how I can apply
Economics
to my life.