Little People

Like little people, these little rats,

They scurry hurriedly on the quads and steps.

These hapless chasers carry estranged smiles.

Their puffy cheeks of paper or of flesh,

Hands stained of ink or of blood, these little people,

Like rats, they lay hidden underground.

They breed, they brood a disease so vile,

In the house of the underground dead. Amongst

Piles of untouched, dead paper and letters, these

Little people, little rats, on tables and chairs,

They feed on each other, deep into the night.

Like the time of kindergarten, these little people,

Are obsessed with A,B,C. These little rats, their bitter

Bile courses like ichor. This black disease of putrid

Plague and dirty alphabets, plusses and minuses

They spread! They spread! Oh please spare me!

To escape, to fly, I seek to their lair.

I seek to these underground shelves of untouched

Corpses. They reek of decay for they died decades ago.

“Let go! You dirty rats!” I scream and I fight.

But their teeth sink and their venom flows.

I kick my legs and try to punch them away,

But the day has come, the day has come.

Like little people, we little rats:

“Where is my 4.0? Oh darn it, drats!”