Curmudgeon

Some people say
they
don’t like people
but when I say it I
really
mean it. I
don’t.
It isn’t anger. It’s
just a preference. People
bring about
such a
gooey trail of damage.
Inflicted
by
friends, teachers, bosses, the
government, enter-
tainment, and most of all, our
parents.
Loving and
eating us up, butchering
us with their love so
that we really
don’t
stand a chance.
We are stormed
by the glow
of
day. By the
skeleton’s face
in the mirror. The chair
at midnight like
one’s own bones. Murky
in their puddling. Masters
of empty clouds, anaesthetized. And
you know
that the future is a weed
covered
island in cold, choppy water
made of salt and iron
and it will only warm itself to you
once
you’ve given in; disarmed; laid
back and allowed
its mystery to greet you with
trust—as in
trusting
a cougar crouching in the
tree above you; or with its
fangs and tongue at your throat—trust
that this is occurring not in
your control or
anyone’s
celestial, divine or
terrestrial.