small, pale people

dressing to excess,
desperate to express
what countless other souls
have dreamt

an individuality
so shorn of uniqueness
that it flatters only
sellers of cheap books and belts

they write, they do,
these little ones
in black notebooks
and purple A5 folders

vampires of literature,
battening and fattening,
scraping gobs of matter
from the marrow of other people’s ideas

aping pain, ignorant
of what it really means
and my terse verses
only highlight the irony:

we are all alone together
and dark matter is everywhere
and we are all equally ridiculous
so why not smile?

Just once.