or The Weirdest Love Poem to Sebastian Stan

or Fun with Metaphors, a Not-So-Nautical Verse

by Kathryn S. Gardiner

curled around ventricles and aorta
piercing twisting grasping
heavy viscous limbs that sway around me like
seaweed in the tide while I’m
just trying to
Do My Thing

a hungry tentacled monster with
vice grip and a
gluttonous gut
a leviathan of ancient times called
Loneliness lives in
my heart

sometimes I arrange the
tentacles pointing up atop my
head like a crown
Her Majesty The Sovereign Queen of Loneliness
Heir and Regent

“come fellow sufferers of the Human Condition
let us do the dances of our people—
solo strides down busy sidewalks and
fetal-position crying on bedroom floors—
and feel no shame”

carry my curling-armed critter on my
shoulders proud and pompous to have the
courage to show the beast
call it Aloneness and know
I am the wiser the
better for its company

but it
only takes a handsome smile to
unleash the kraken

bursting sharply through ribs to rest
squishy head against a
young man’s chest
fleshy flippers clutching broad shoulders strong
cooing words like Yes and This and Forever
nursing on nothings
I tell myself are sweet

choosing with all the wisdom of a
ravenous dieter in a convenience store
sucker-pads clinging to the
sleeves and shirt collars of unsuitable suitors like
microwave pizza and cheese that
comes in cans

now a weary deckhand
I tug and pull reel in
tentacles like anchor line
thick twitchy limbs pummeling the poop deck of
my soul as I
wrangle the wretch
insist to a wild creature made of
wounds that This Is No Way To Live

then throw it a daydream as a
distraction
“here
have lazy morning sex
with that hot guy from Captain America”

“You can even
imagine he loves you”

and its thrashing lessens for a while as it
jounces off into fantasies
tentacles bouncing like the
chorded coat on a monstrous mop dog

and for a time I can
breathe

yearn over photos of
New Favorite Celebrity looking
just left of camera so his eyes
don’t meet mine for
fear he’ll somehow see the starved
quivering creature reaching out from
my heart and I
feel shame

feel childish
pathetic
ridiculous
dull

don’t look at me
I just want to make-believe
fingers extended walking hallways
pretending there’s a hand to
hold mine a
warm-blanket illusion an infant’s pacifier in the
jagged mouth of a brute that
only knows hunger please don’t judge me
delightful stranger and the

terrible maw of Loneliness opens so wide I
fall in
drowning like the sailor in Moby Dick in the
brainpan of a sperm whale
cerebral fluid clogging lungs and the
tears don’t stop
even when I beg them to

aching crush of
tentacles close around me
rental-unit carpet
scratchy against my skin
bedroom floor and fetal position
“come my uncherished chest-burster
let us do the dance of our people” and
grieve what I’ve not known
imagine what life might be if someone believed in
my dreams in
me
as much as I do

let it rest heavy on my forehead feeling
nothing like a queen

but still longing for a King
gaze into gruesome leaking eyes
call it Abyss and let it
gaze into me to the
platitudes made ghost and
there isn’t
someone for everyone and existence does not
make promises

butterfly-flutter of tentacles in my chest always the
portent of pain and a
waste of time only ever
leaving
me with the kraken

my monster
my leviathan
my vampiric beastie draining days of peace to
inject thirst for Human Connection
my heartache
my Hopelessness
my companion

throw back a shot of fairytale to
take the edge off
frolic to loud music of my
choice
comic books scattered where I wish
tentacles thumping a heart-worn rhythm
drink straight from the carton and
know even True Love will not
cannot
slay a beast immemorial

“I see you” and
slowly unwind untangle and
cradle Loneliness to my chest
kiss slimy cankerous skin then
distill tears and blood into ink to
confess
profess
because there’s no one

but I
still
have dreams