Envy

The ache of an open afternoon

spread a cancer

of all the routine choices

mismatching puzzle holes

that I

tumbled down into:

Envy

I was posed in the cafe-

my own self-oppressed mannequin

high on desperate ego

and books

and clockwork production-

when I was interrupted

by blue hair

and pink scrunchies

and lukewarm

hot takes

spewed loud over coffee.

A duo

filling the space

with dumb revolutions.

And I rolled my eyes at them

over my book

over the shelves

over myself

and over the growing hole in my chest

as I realized the interrupters 

had become human.

And I was not human.

Youth tumbles into tradegy-

the great transformer-

and maybe once

I had held that brightness too:

a narrowing of the world

to a single other-

rules be damned.

Laughing

running through the streets

of a foreign city.

But, now

I am lined and beige.

And I fear that all bright things

are destined to fade-

to be adandoned-

to become a stock character

puppetering themselves alone through life

in the back of an old cafe.