Tattoos in Mayberry

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You must do unto others
so you can keep winning.
Stay on top.
color, and straighten, your hair,
get a deep tan.
Whiten your teeth
Trim down your waistline.
Put love on the back burner.
Better to buy a gold plated altar.
Shed no tears,.
Scare Medusa out of her skin.
Go viral 
and be featured on the evening news.
Your Sun sign hangs fire
Takes on no water.
Killing all prisoners..
Staying the course in the eye of the hurricane.
Losing a sail is the bad luck of others.
Toggle your switches in dangerous waters.
Take color pictures of ships crashing up against rocks.
Look sprite and refreshed,
Sip iced tea on the shore.
Throw no lifelines to sailors in the storm
You've won bloodless battles
over blessed beasts, freaks and wild things.
Snubbing any player
trying to blow out your flame..
Darts have been poisoned.
More children sacrificed
Lady luck has run in your favor.
Winning numbers accrue
in numbered accounts.
Through attrition,
you re-wrote the book
with spaced repetition
but what victory to withhold your true passions.
Keeping secrets,
the biggest of which
is you never knew love.
Your playbook went blank
when asked to live in the moment.
What you destroyed now destroys you.
A bitter reward to live in the past.
Wreckage engulfs you,
your sworn testimony
but,a thin blade of grass
holding together your broken pieces
.Stalled, shattered, abandoned
Your rubble in ruin on life's highway.
Your tan, and your hair,
now not so golden
Your stories of conquest
a medicated movie
 a tale. not so emboldened.
Your evening news audience
are indifferent orderlies
 bringing your meals on a tray.
Your empire unholy..
You cringe from care packages
 from guilt laden relations.
Calls unreturned, 
Your letters of protest,
returned to sender
to your last known address.
All that's left in your arsonal, are disruptive effusions, 
imploding, delusions of grandeur
 a heartache, gnawing, and inescapable
slimming you down to dust.

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Slimming down to Dust