How can you go wrong giving some carefully-selected person, loved or otherwise, a Chia pet?

If they're children, they will see the miracle of life with anticipatory excitement.

If they're adults, they will think of you (if you know what I mean... maybe) every time they look at it.

If they're intellectuals, they will wax philosophical about anthropomorphism.

If they're dullards, they'll be fascinated.

If they're adolescents, they'll have something new to try in the pipe.

If they're businessmen, they'll pine for missed business opportunities.

If they're women, they'll be seduced.

If they're men, they will finally own a plant.

Remembered Charles III, usurpateur du jour,

"She always said, 'Over my dead body,' and what's more

She was so bloody right

It's my royal birthright

Long live me, I guess, till — I, too — am done for."

I want what you have

You have what I want

It's a formula for trouble brewing

Calligraphic summons, graphic font

I like what you do

You do what I like

It's a formula for rage imbuing

And usurpation when I strike

Don't look for me a'coming

You won't see me but feel the brunt

You'll wonder what I'm doing

You are the feckless I hunt

The world is full of hunters who see

In a blinded world of clueless prey

The fittest will survive the chewing

The eaters live another day

Clean sheets

Thread count hundreds

Freshly laundered

Gently

Lying within

Just scrubbed clean

Naked

With someone else

"Why am I a disgrace?"

"Just look at you!"

"You have a lot of nerve. I mean — look at you!"

"Well, at least I don't talk with food in mouth."

"Like you're doing right now?"

"Oh, I hate you."

"You're way too hateful."

"Can you blame me?"

"Why are you standing?"

"I've had enough!"

"You have an anger problem, you do."

"I DO NOT HAVE AN ANGER PROBLEM, YOU FUCKING CUNT!"

Waitress: "Y'know, I don't mind if you wanna talk to yourself like this every morning, but this is getting out of hand. I won't bring you even more coffee. I'll call your doctor. I'll give him coffee. He'll need it.

The solute awaits the missing solvent

Inchoate alchemy yet to mix

And create the solution

The solution ensnares missing charges

That attracts right stuff

For the stuffing stirring in the cauldron

The cauldron effervesces

Each blob of bubbled plasma'nauts

Burst into the airs of possibility

The possibility of solution as the fruit

Come to fruition

And life just pours out

It just pours out when it rains

Open your mouth

And taste life's sweet nectar

Sweet nectar nourishment

Take not cover from the rain

That provides the solution

The solution is the otherwise immiscible

But collects ready-for-child-like giddiness

That embraces life splashing in puddles

He was supposed to be dead

That's what you naturally assumed

When you can't find the head

He was supposed to be buried

In the ground, interred, inhumed

And his rot in situ unhurried

He was supposed to be eaten by worms

At terra verma six feet consumed

But a murder of crows his death confirms

He was supposed to be returned to the earth

But was dug up, brought to the mall foodcourt room

For black Friday, offered for less than he's worth

Chop locally

Nothing important is inner child's play

Where you err exploits the means for the end

Weigh all possibilities, aweigh

The order of things is not ours to say

The journey, laid out, is not ours to bend

Nothing important is inner child's play

Leave the trifles till the close of the day

And bend the gravity you can defend

Weigh all possibilities, aweigh

Nobody's fool can, no one, betray

But neither can, he, be anyone's friend

Nothing important is inner child's play

Trust is a gift that will not overstay

But comes with balances you must append

Weigh all possibilities, aweigh

Set them up, let them fall, and come what may

Jockey for position from which to fend

Nothing important is inner child's play

Weigh all possibilities, aweigh

I expected it — I was notified

I accepted it — aware and clear-eyed

Therefrom came the scheduled rendezvous

My Star Caller, punctual, followed through

As ethereal, mega-headed, and telepathic

In agreement with my intuition

It accepted my precondition

It would not communicate

Or otherwise concentrate

With anyone else extrasensorate

Lest a whirlwind of complex humanity

Confound it in cultures contradictory

I needed to break it in gently

To the foibles of mankind's assembly

And risk not, tragically, alienate

I considered first contact, at least,

With a rabbi, an imam, or priest

But even that could involve trysts

Of subtly misread, misunderstood risks

Simple mistakes incompatibly mutate

No, I needed to go even humbler

Lest make the usual human blunder

Of solipsistic hubris, misassumption,

Leading our summit to fruitless disjunction

Essential to avoid the ill-passionate

Who should I deem it meet

To avoid our unavoidable conceit?

Who, from it, should we dutifully hide,

Those it couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't abide?

The very same saboteurs who pontificate

Where are the Kings, Mother Theresas, and Ghandis

And the Mandelas we ideally embrace so fondly

When sidestepping the ubiquitous, quotidian cruelties

That the rest of us wear so proudly as jewelry?

The deceit, invectives, and racism used to subjugate

It turns out I met it, impotently, to befriend us

But with no one I trusted to fairly represent us

Until there appeared a proxy enchanted

Who was always there but taken for granted

Man's best friend, incarnate

He greeted the being satisfactory

With wagging inquiries olfactory

Opened its mouth to invite it

And have faith his jowls wouldn't bite it

More than enough to appreciate

This oral seduction inviting to trust

Between dog and Star Caller was decisively sussed

Giving the gentle but powerful canine

The benefit of the doubt without reading his mind

Neither a biting-the-hand-that-feeds-it correlate

"For surely," said Star Caller, "this gentle sentience

Could tear my flesh apart in temperamental violence.

But taking my limb so softly, with such teeth

Dignifies sweet innocence underneath."

Host and guest forged a whole world's fate

"I've seen enough," concluded Star Caller.

"How can I wreck a planet that's smaller

Than the love such a creature has for its friend

And who will live for him till the very end?"

Without judgment, scoring, or debate

Star Caller returned to the skies, aimed at his Sun

To report back to those whence he had come

En route called, but once, via quantum transmitter

To put down a deposit for the pick of the litter