the storyteller

you are not
half
the storyteller you
imagine yourself to be.

your stories are verbose,
unfailingly tedious,
formulaic.
you drone; bluster and
flail.

(use one thousand words
when a hundred 
will do)

and exaggerate so wildly
that every story becomes a
saga:
wait while i get popcorn
and a sprite.

(could take a while)

drag out chapters
into books that no-one
wants to read – they do
anyway.

spin a line into a
paragraph,
but there’s nothing
golden
about your words.
(tarnished, dulled, you
need to do some
cleaning)

and realize one day:
all the stories
(noise)
you tell
signify n o t h i n g.