The Crocodile

Wrapping paper ripped apart in excited greed
And envious glances are cast my way.
I got the biggest present of the lot.
I tear to shreds the green paper with red
Presents decorated all over and am faced with
An unusual thing – a crocodile.
Initially, I laugh, joining in with the joke that
This crocodile is the perfect present for me
With its green skin and still greener hoops.
Then, it starts happening all around me,
The people do what they have failed to do
For the last two and a half years and actually
Revel in one another’s company outside of a
Classroom – and all I can do is sit here,
Crocodile hanging loosely from my hand,
Wondering when it was I last left my house
Without fearing ridicule from ridiculous people.

Snide comments passed by the standard bearers in the presence
Of the other better people, the other important people,
The ones who saved the publication from the mundane
And made guardians and independents take notice.
As they pretend to live in reality, the coldness of my lids
Reverberates down my body every millisecond,
Slowly, like a groping glove seeking the hidden problems,
Only without the warm intention to cure those problems,
And tears come so close before becoming cold themselves,
Retreating so far away the thought makes me want to cry
All over again, all over the people.
So I turn to the crocodile with hopes of a reprieve
From a present meant to make me smile, surely?
But the crocodile has no words of wisdom, no
Philosophy I can borrow; it just sits there,
Unemotional, quiet, with dead pan eyes and
A stitched up mouth preventing attack on open wounds.

Yet there is something else about the crocodile’s indifference,
A reclusive charm hangs about it, with a knowing air,
And I realise then what I missed in its absent glint;
This crocodile is laughing at me, mocking the blood
Coursing through my veins, and the life that blood brings
To my heart – only to allow it all slip away in whirlpools
Of doubt and despair, with death not even an option
Because I am not allowed to die the way he did.
In its entire idleness, its unnerving uselessness and
Its dead in every single way nature, this crocodile
Has finally enabled me to understand a grim truth;
I am as much use to those I call my friends
As this crocodile is – stuffed, lifeless and of
Value to nobody in the harsh reality of things.
Yet I am kept around, purely for entertainment,
Cheap, over apologetic, and utterly humorous to all
But I.

And as my mind walks away from yet another
Unfinished jigsaw puzzle missing its major pieces,
I attempt to console myself by withdrawing with
The crocodile into isolation;
The din of the party they had without me, though,
Follows behind like an annoying child,
Tugging at my ear lobes, smashing my drums,
Getting louder and louder the further away I go,
Repeatedly hitting the great time had by all off my face
Until blood begins to flow from my nose like the
Slowest and most elegant of waterfalls.
And I shout, and I shout, and I shout, and I shout,
But I am drowned out by the invisible long over party,
And I fall silent out of hoarseness, as quiet as this
Crocodile now occupying the foot of my bed,
As opinionless, voiceless and completely choiceless
As this stuffed loon.

(I got a crocodile for Kris Kringle and look what it made me write).