pillows were heaped high to appease the whim of royalty

everyone where’s purple these days

it’s pink we contest

civil unrest, bludgeoned life vest

thrown long after the ship sank

harpoon shot practice

intentions

never defined

intuition refined, forgetting what they tell us

we drown

why should we trust the man with rolls lopping over his water-worn belt holding up a swimsuit, in name only, because he went wading in shorts, unprepared, to blame the cinematic version of being lonely and scared

after realizing

he couldn’t save himself

who am i to judge?

i wore tri-colored trunks to bed last night, my head, worn and wretched, dug firmly into balled up blankets as i pretended sleep came easy

“keep your rectangular fluff stacked to the ceiling.” i whisper into cotton creases, hoping you’ll hear “observe your status, as bulged and bleeding eyes greet another day, after another night of keeping watch, waiting for shadows to materialize and actualize what you thought was buried in billion dollar bribes. you lost. fuck off.”

i drift away

you, press “0”

asking “will you bring more?”

in the end

when they come

you’ll have to answer the door

alone