Tugging on the Strings

I may not be a puppet,
But from nine to five I feel it
Tugging on the strings inside.
This meat-bag just conceals it.

Other hours, the bag that contains me
Is primarily there to carry ideas.

My multi-function biotechnology
Is complex enough to guarantee
If more than one should ever meet,
That one the other will mislead.

It's A Process

Tongues always grow spry
Around unusual tasks.
They ask how (if not, it's why);
I answer if they ask.

I say “it's a process,”
and so is dialing a phone.
What I mean is “it's in progress,”
and I don't really know.

The Next Line

I love it when I know the next line
Before watching.
It's how I know there's a writer on board,
That someone's driving.

I hate it when I know the next line.
Why should I watch what I could write?

If I could have written it,
Why am I not getting paid?

The Pointlessness

I string a few symbols together,
Then weave the strings into one another.
So, poets make lanyards of words.
I wonder how many laugh at the pointlessness,
But I like things that make me laugh.

The Siren's Call

Everyone's heard of the siren's call,
But English class did it no justice at all.
The truest allure of it isn't the sound,
But the hope of the lost that they may have been found.
For so long only led where our culture compels,
I'd follow another voice anywhere else.

One Hundred Twenty

One hundred twenty months don't hide what I didn't do.
After ten years' time I can't be sure I even remember you.
I never pictured myself this much older.
I can't believe I'm still no wiser.
I can't believe a decade is all I get–
So long to decimate my soul with regret.

I never really moved from where she left me.
Here I am, on the other side of should-be,
Surrounded by questions I can't answer.

They call this living–
Just one more thing
I never did for her.

Let's Play a Game

At first it was “let's play a game of six-on-one.
Winners don't have to sit in the corner and cry!”
Eventually, the games got a little more sly,
and I stopped sitting in the corner.
Finally, we played around of “monkeys see, monkeys do.”
Ever had a hundred people try to look like you?

I never belonged,
But I survived.

Now, on the way from too little new
To way too much to do,
I'm constricted by an ill-fitting schedule.
The long arm of bureaucracy thrashes me up and down–
One toe-deep end-one toe-deep end.
I don't belong...