Stone Soup Croutons, 11-1-18, To a Troll Dying Old

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked up from poems overheard from Stone Soup's open mic readers and features. I figure out a title (and sometimes the rest of the poem) later. You can read the other ones I've done since 2015 here. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, this poem doesn't go up because it's ready, it goes up because it's Friday morning.

We had another open mic last night. I have another poem. This one turned out better than I thought it would, but I'm a little spent from the last couple of months. I think it's starting to show in all my recent work. Luckily, with last weekend's excellent event done, I have time to regroup, recharge and think of what's coming to Stone Soup next. Thanks for being patient with me, and thanks for reading.


To a Troll Dying Old

Tonight you find acceptance
in the last Facebook post you shared
before you were banned.

That and an unsent email.
Female name, best you can tell.
No other clear reason why
she was up to be doxxed..

The real you is lost in the details
you mother held in your once long locks,
small quarter toys that break in pockets.

Your days of forgotten play,
cast aside like a murder plot
to the last friend to kick up your sandbox.

They survived your conspiracies.
You survived their nihilism.
You survive remembering
the last person to say they love you.

You collapse from the weight,
foggy cat walk  crawled to halt,
loneliness an eclipse
you can't stare down. 

You can only method act
once per audience.
No casting couch will hold you,
body not fit enough
to be a murder victim.

The voices in your head
no longer try to make you
do anything wild.
You lack imagination
of trigger happy youth.

They bid you go to sleep
pray for your next move,
any plot holding more
than your online history.

Special thanks to Julia Vogel, Angelo D'Amato Lee Varon, Laurel Lambert, Michael Igoe, Deb Priestly, Chris Fitzgerald, Martha Boss, Nancy Messom and James Van Looy.