The Madman

Sitting on an old dock, rough and brown as bread crust,

I attempt to recall feelings

My former self once possessed, hoping to restore the

Buoyant, boyish attitude of my childhood. The

Curling tips of waves anger me as they mock

My predicament, tickling my bare, bronze feet with

Devilish glee, changing at will

With twisting currents and pools,

And extracting the remaining pitiful cells of happiness

From my soulful veins like hungry syringes.

Why may the ocean flow continuously without

Restriction, but I am damned to remain sorrowfully stagnant,

Unable to retrieve my youth

And equally incapable of collecting the

Fermented wisdom my old age owes to me?

I am like a banker, who, offered a drink

By a man in debt to him, becomes merrily drunk,

Experiencing life’s most incredible and temporary features

Only to wake the next morning with

A heavy head aching with the knowledge that he was tricked,

Letting his debtor dart away free once again.

Life is a cheat, a crook, a brawny burglar breaking

Into hearts, ripping away the joy he had previously given,

And rescinding his promise of gifts to come. The water

Swirling below sickens me as my stomach churns

With a terrible, thunderous storm striking down

Fellow sailors navigating the boiling oceans of existence

With vengeful lightning. Perhaps,

As life has done to me, I may

Take another’s happiness and chain it to

My gray, stone anchor of a heart, hiding it

So that no being, mortal or immortal, may tear it

From my grasp again.

Yes, I will roam these seas searching

For youths with jubilant naivety, stealing

Their blessings like an old pirate of a slightly different fashion, but

No less a fiend than those of old. Catch sight

Of my black, frayed flag and tremble before

The cold, hard starboard of the soul-ship.

Beware you who sees my face, white

As chalk, cackling like a starving hyena above his dead and bleeding prey.

Beware.