I wish that I was better, for the kids who emulate.

but they should really all know better,

than to take the fucking bait

that I’ve been dangling from this building

with my goosebumps in the cold.

I am nothing but a story for a man until I’m sold.

and he can tell it in the lobby, to the old men at the bar

they’ll all clink his cup

and make shit up.

to take it all too far,

they’ll tell a lie about the summer

where they “once had me alone”

and I’ll reside inside a sonnet.

I’m a picture in a phone.

I’ve aged beyond the angel they all saw inside me then.

a grotesque and fading memory

trapped underneath a pen.

Published on February 19th, 2023