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.