SPONGE BOY (Poem by David N. Donihue)
Not a boy and far from a hardened man
A guy
Guys are known for being liked not respected
A guy
Whose personality takes on characteristics of what he is most around
As if never truly his own person
A sponge
Absorbing and displaying
Often the worst of fashion trends
The boy with the backwards baseball cap
The boy with the frosted tips
The boy with the ever changing buzz word lips
A reflection of the world around him in the most annoying of ways
The Sponge Boy
He tries too hard
The sad thing is, he’s not trying
He’s over absorbing and over releasing
It happens without his awareness
Without the worlds awareness
He looks just like a phony or a poseur
We hate him
Because he reflects at full force
What all of fear a portion of our beings is created from
We fear we are the sponge boy
Because
Sponge Boy seems weaker
Seems owned by persuasion
And in the beginning, this is true
But as Sponge Boy matures past imitation and somehow makes it through absorption
The empath within emerges as the knowledge of many
What was once seen as weakness is later seen as a layered life
A man who has lived through and felt the thoughts and frequencies of many
A man whose words now resonate like bombs of understanding
Like explosions of relating
He is the man you call for prayer at 2 am
He is the man you tell about your abortion
He is the man you grab onto when others would never get it
The most dangerous threat to the dark hearts of the world
Is the Sponge has been surrounded with pain and love
For when that sponge releases everything he has collected
The moisture will cleanse the dirty wounds of everyone surrounding him
The dark hearts will be powerless without misery as a bonding mechanism
That draws others behind their cowardly anger
They slowly become the minority instead of the majority
Simply because Sponge Boy matured and released
The ripple effect hits hundreds
Three to four words fold tharknes
From block to block over weeks
Like a virus of wisdom
They spread
They crush disappointment
They crush discouragement
They crush mother fucking shame
He many never know he is blessed
They may never admit he did it
But he did
He released
Right when they were most thirsty
And for the first time
A mechanism of life
Seemed so perfect it had to be planned