Take What You Can, Give Nothing Back

     We are pirates of the
cruelest kind.
We plunder emotions
pillage intimacy
and rape the mind.
The world is our ocean
and we build our ship of
pretty words that lack substance.
We knock back bottles of
pocket distillation
brewed from weakness and
sweetened with lies.
We answer to all and to none.
So trust nothing visceral
for there’s no honor amongst thieves
like you and me,
with you selling me your
bootleg affection
and me, for all my talk
of a cutlass for a heart
buying it nonetheless.
And while I’m still not sure
what it was I stole from you,
I guess it’s nothing important,
nothing you’d miss.