Please don’t gnash your teeth

And write about the depths of your despair, your

Everlasting sorrow

Please spare me your adolescent plunge into literature

And depressed solipsism

I don’t care about how anguished you are

Nor does anyone else

Even if they pretend admiration.

Do me a favor

Tear up your poems or

Alternatively

Stick them to your refrigerator with a magnet

Which will be as close to attractive as they will ever get.

Oh, and I forgot to mention how much I dislike

wistfulness and mild unease or

floating through a field of flowers.

Or landscapes that mirror your interior thoughts

I mean, be serious

Landscapes don’t say much but

If they say anything it’s definitely not related to you.

Or the sea.

Leave the fucking sea out of your pretensions

Unless of course you choose

To drown in a sea of melancholy

That’s okay in my book.