The Rules of Elevation

The Rules of Elevation

A man can not help being short

Some poll stated it takes an additional $40,000 of income a year

For a man to be equally favorable to a taller counterpart for every

Inch in height he is below five foot ten

And men are labeled the shallow gender

Fat can be helped, portly can be de-plumped

Short can not be stretched and no matter my words or speech

Or common relative reach difference is rarely dented

Easier to be alone than be beaten by the tides that bind

These ankles to the ocean floor drowning down this gasp for air

In the liquid over coat ceiling a few inches under and the world

Is thrown asunder in the maelstrom of munchkin consumption

Brash tactics and anti-climatic assumptions of measurements of a man

I have lost all hope in this sea slosh slump grated down below as runt

So you dismiss me short and I will dismiss you fat, how fair is that?

Maybe it means I could gain some weight and be as equally undesirable

Maybe I could lie to myself in stations of greed, to become self obsessive

And ignore the needs of every pound of humanity washing around these eyes

Thicken up and consolidate this lonely into a sus pen of singular intent

Wallow in the mire of self-satiated desires rolling over in an undertow

Riptide that will not let go of this cadaver barrel roll crocodile grip

In this perfunctory lagoon of shortened what ifs

Never going to grow, just truncate this mind back to those days and these times

I bathe in reluctant acceptance of the answer to every question

Is an eight ball of no’s echoed in a torpedo engulfing this submarine

In a breath of brick humidity, no bubbles just a dumb voice that you won’t be hearing

Flatten me now, refusing to continue this ruse of rules as if character or position

Or willingness to listen factored in as much as a couple of inches

All of it bricks upon bricks of these lies we live with, shadow cast

Swallowed in the darkness of everyone’s pass of irrelevant preoccupations

That bear no bearing to underlying realities