The Mastered Mind

I was at the entrance to amateur hour and I was wondering if you would meet me upon arrival,

but you were late, as usual

And when you were least expecting it,

I robbed you of your money,

and your running shoes,

and your worth [hopefully]

In the midst of everything I believed about you,

about your horrid tendencies as a less than satisfied man,

And when you were settled temporarily,

when you were quietly at peace with all the myths you concocted,

when you expected all of us to accept your ideas of what it means to have transitory permanence

At the end of all of this, I would count you the puppet you always believed me to be

and I would pin you up on the wall with the rest of them,

the rest of the proxies who never believed in me or the belief that I could and would have believed in them

not in the fleet,

not in the heat,

not in the transience,

but once,

once and for all---