#you'd never guess who stopped by my house uninvited couple weeks back. had started writing this beforehand

[sacrilegious-skeletal-scribe]

wave the pequod away from port/ and dream of dead fish/

we talked a lot/ when i was a kid/

/

we/ is a strong word/

but for all your faults/ you were a very effective teacher/

i knew from a young age/ how to nod with an acceptable amount of deference/

how to balance noises of assurance with eye contact/

even gods least-favorite little yes-men have to start somewhere

i don’t think i really understood it/ not for a long time/ 

that look in your eyes/ when you caught sight of me/

staring at each other through filmy glass/

i knew it was love/ because you didn’t look at your coworkers like that/ 

and you loved me/

obviously/

i think i figured it out before i could put words to it/

but it’s been a couple of years since i was thirteen/

and that over-grown slice of caviar had a instinct for self-flattery so deep you’d think they were trying to breathe it/

but you looked at me the way people look at wall-trophies/

so i started slipping sarcasm into answers you hadn’t asked for/

locked off whatever sense of self i could stand to lose for a few hours/

and kept my face blank when you stormed away from the open aquarium lid/

learned what house keys and petty malice sounded like/ walking up my back porch/

and just how much teeth i could use when greeting you/

before you started to suspect something was wrong/

but you couldn’t be uncouth/

you couldn’t stoop to my level/ 

admit to starting the game/ while i swam circles around you/ your flashing lures/

and taught myself how to hold my mouth that it was never more than a second from snapping shut/

because i understood how to win wars/

and you couldn’t bear the thought that your prize-winning goldfish was planning a coup/

much less that you had earned it/

i don’t know if it was pride or blindness/

or whatever blurring line you had dragged into the sand on your way off the beach/

something wriggling in a sack and trying it’s best to bite you/

it’s the argument i’ve always kinda wanted to finish/

to load myself with spears and fishhooks and find out how real those tears were/

because you did this to me in less than two decades

and i’ve spent a significant amount of time with my face tucked to carpet undoing it

and in the process i have discovered that i am not a nice person/

i have seen what happens to people who throw themselves after white whales/

strapped with as many weapons as can fit onboard and set off from harbor with a hunger in their teeth that would pull sympathy from Tantalus/

and in the stories i am thinking of/

the best the good captain can hope for/ is killing his whale/

in the same instance his noose runs out of slack/

that he gets to see the death throes of that great/ terrible beast/

while the rope between them sees him keel-hauled/

and i don’t know that i find the idea an unsatisfactory one

i would rather like to hunt you for sport/ 

with a fervor i don’t think i could pass off as casual interest/

i would display you before an hostile/ silent crowd/

huddled faces spilling across the port as i haul your corpse into the town center/

introduce myself as your murderer when i am invited to parties/

let the anger rot through me/ some last disease from your disseminated blubber/

and barring public execution/ i would like one more chance/ 

one more polite luncheon/

to inflict just as much pain on you as i can manage in two hours and fourteen minutes/

but i don’t think either of us should be allowed to do that to each other anymore/

if only for the sake of the wait staff/

and that withering beta fish/ trapped in whatever cup you happened to clean out that week/

has wanted to hit you in the mouth for a very long time/

and i’m pretty sure i shouldn’t be allowed to do that either/

regardless of how much either of us deserve it//