Sinister Spongebob shoe spinning
slowly on its spindle of plastic
twisted, stuffed face supposedly grinning,
But through three days’ stupor of no sleep it looks
just menacing.

This is the hell of my life.

Not the bad times, no
Not the day when I screamed at my mom “I hate you!”
nor the times when this or that guy would say, “Enough!” and leave me
alone in a parking lot, drunk and sobbing
Nor the tragedies by the toilet—not to be underestimated—
my body again rebelling against its nourishment, utter pain,
something I have to live with every day.

It’s these silent moments when I stand and stare at how bleak the world is
and it stares back,
wondering what the hell I’m looking at.  

It’s standing in the check-out line and seeing
the image of an anthropomorphized sponge
that enthralls the minds of hundreds of kids on TV
and thinking,

I was that.

I was yellow and square and smiling,
living out absurd adventures and singing songs about it
holding hands with my best friend and never questioning
the holes in my head or why I had to work
every day for an asshole crab who only cares about money.

And every friend was a brand new creature, not one of which was scary.
Kids find this believable, and funny.

But I just want to cry
when I think I used to be happy
The strange angles in cartoons scare me now
like non-Euclidian geometry
And the obvious incongruities
between pineapple houses and sanity
make me jealous of the success
of childishness and lunacy,
when I’ve given up everything
to be watertight and wary,
to expunge their lies and turn eyes to what can hurt me—
I see monsters everywhere.

I finally got a life.  I no longer need to believe.
So why is it Spongebob and not me who is grinning?