On that throne you sit, zealous confidence yielding, where on bent knee, I smile, basking in the madness flowing, You came here, providence guided, gazing upon this neon kingdom, You saw it as a dumpster full of trash, one you could build, and mold into an empire becoming of your Lord.

But in the wool you keep over your eyes, in that bountifulness energy, that ever effacing drive, only built on the most beautiful of lies, that this is your purpose, your place, your calling... ordained! That you lose all objectivity, sir, and you fail to see, that this dumpster is but burning, and you can grasp nothing, and you can not change anything. For, if only you'd known, that a dumpster of trash, that can, razing, burns ever long into, the cold steep night. And that by huddling it's warmth you only have but two selfish choices. You can put it out, and sit in the cold and the dark, hated by those now without it's warmth. Though you may find yourself closer to God, like Adam, you will leave the rest of us in suffering and sin. A true hero. They'll sing your praises hence.

Or, you can let it burn. Let your kingdom set flame, crackling in the shadows of a lightly moonlit night. Telling stories and dreams, of where you're the protagonist, the king, to a captive audience that drools, and remembers naught. You'll smile and laugh, a reverie of life and death, the Knowledge that you have claimed, in your short life spewing forth. And then, alas, you'll awaken, and your kingdom will be nothing but ash. And it will slip through your fingers, like it has so many others. And it won't be your fault. No, just a test, just a task. God's will, and you his humble servant. The fire after all, when it burned, was so bright. And your God has always been a fan of such light. The sun will raise, alas, as you look on the dying embers of your morningstar. The irony won't reach you, Michael, until ages evermore.

So I left that dumpster burning. In your ignorance, you may still be molding and building. In your zealotry, you may not even know the scars you are molding unto your body, mind, and soul. Yet you are captured by the devil called cash. And you deem it holy. Surely you are not wrong. Surely, if only. Those who see you gasp, aweshook and flabbergast, truly this is the will of man, inspired! What belief in myself can bring, in wonder! I shake my head in bland aching numb. Temples pulsing, life wrung. I shan't speak anymore, as if I know how the story is really won. For it's so easy to see yours, but I can't write my own. At least you're an author and not a tool. Even if it is only for evil dressed so pretty, at least it's for something you at all. While to me, I get no barrel, no god, no fire so bright, so deceitful, just empty words, with less substance and meaning, than the inevitable ashes you'll deny as God's light, misleading.

A voice whispered out to me, years later, in a cold room, alone, as voices often do. "Whose story is it John?" Hmm. "If only I knew."

https://www.reddit.com/r/poetry_critics/comments/61nczy/a_memory/dffubzp/

https://www.reddit.com/r/poetry_critics/comments/61n38x/parakeet_nest/dffuo9t/

edit Text wall is intentional, sorry that it isn't delightful to read!

https://youtu.be/LjaVw6GJaKI

Link to spoken version(by me) above, if you so choose.