Nettles

He sank into their calculations
And snorted on the stench
Of their arithmetic.
Looked for the boy who was hanging his head low,
More trophies than ideas. To follow their pretence.

With a scowl in his pocket and a smile on his face
He followed with obidience
And fell in the Nettles.

Afterwards those spikey whispers said he bought his own rope.
And skipped the bits they loathed.
Didn't scramble to find a dock leaf to capture back our hope
To advice his mind had closed
He lost all of his footholes.

He was a toothpick!
And the garlic and the cinder upon the path
Had failed to blunt or hinder the slow collapse
Clinging to the doorframe he was dragged
Off to a reminder of where he had been.