nicholas dolinger – SpongeBob SquarePants

Bubble Buddy

The dirty snow about the trunk
mingles with the mud under the treedome,
and I wander alone on the ninth of October,
longing for the mermaids and the mammals.

In the wintry apex of my neglect
you manifested and gave new life to me.
You were constituted of lye,
without blemish or filth on your soul.
You made me experience high tide,
everyday was holiday with you,
occasions invented for an excuse to mingle.
I adored my reflection in your eyes
when you had shine and glitter left for me.
(I’ll fill your life with misery and woe)

We dined in style, steak tartare and wine,
diet soap, bent plastic carnival style.
Despite the scandal when my money vanished,
despite the demands the demands you made,
despite inordinate time in the bathroom
in penance for the chilaquiles cart,
you cleansed the stench of shame from my grey flipper.

I hope to inflate you and fly away,
perhaps to see the beaches or volcanoes,
or just as far as Brighton on Monday—
if you can ignore the ignorant hoards.
I throw myself before the needle for you:
Your enemies are mine,
I scorn the mob which persecutes you.
Your life is worth the sum of their cadavers,
and no act is too great
to defend your honor from their jeers.

You said it had become too weird in this town
and parted from me in your bubble car,
floating westward in the evening sky
while I took out my handkerchief and fled.
They blow up so fast.

SpongeGuard on Duty

The feral chucho scavenges the sand
while Yamil Bukele watches from the deck
and you make a lover of the Pacific tide,
which holds your body in his cold embrace.
I know this creature, groping breasts and thighs—
handsome but tempestuous, with Mara Salvatrucha marks
across his muscled torso and his face.
He pulls you further into his embrace
while I observe embarrassed from the shore,
until you yell in terror at the rape,
and so I douse my nose in the white stuff.

I am the lobster, triumphant in my sex.
The lobster is becoming blue and cold,
his gross misshapen body pushed about,
The lobster swallows salt and loses ground,
the lobster has you in his meaty claw,
be calm, he tells you from his red antennae.

I lose my Mary pendant in the waves,
but the lobster will not let you perish here—
I will not leave without you, hot or cold,
so get your act together and be calm;
hold your breath and let him rock you ashore,
and take your breath when his assault has passed,
and do this again without ceasing,
submit and it will soon be over love.

The rapist recedes.
I want to kiss you as you shake,
but you have lost your appetite for lobster.

Rock-a-Bye Bivalve

Your body was hollow and porous,
and I was stone-dumb and pink
when we took in the frail one
which murmured within you as we prepared to part.
Although I was disturbed by this germ,
I never raised my foot to extinguish him,
the chirping wonder of your little womb.

I let him make a home within my pants
while he ate your body, and we were wet smiles
(We will bury you.)
Behold the funny face, the broken hands,
the shivering and idleness of dad—
(I think I know the problem) underneath,
which envelopes his loins in white tissue.

"This makes me hungry," I announced at dawn,
before proceeding to entertainments and pretend.
My belly bloated while you labored,
sprouting Shiva limbs from your inflamed thyroid,
holding iron, jigger, pen and paper, rent
to cover for my brash ineptitude,

and while you chastised me for unwashed dishes
which collected bilge water in the sink,
we caught him on the precipice of falling out.
We were too late to catch him when he fell,
and he flew away into the open sea (Let’s have another.)

I Had an Accident

We took turns doing unflattering impressions,
(Everybody's an idiot except for me),
(Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else?)
descending down the slope into the mud.
Yet between the abuses I held you in your pain
when you received the injury to your rear,
you gritted your teeth and drank a solemn beer.
We made wet and laugh with the body still within.

You came so close to giving final word,
Never ever ever ever ever for never ever
to come home.
You sat alone with iPhone, string and lint,
while I set out to entice you back
into the seven-mile spanking machine with me,
bribing with little debaucheries and powdered trifles.
That’s crazy talk, no this is crazy talk
you said as I became fond of the ring.
I’m a sponge; I’ll filter feed
on photographs, memories, and self-pity.

I tried to serenade you for your birthday, three cheers;
and you gave me the ode of indoors for my trouble.
I made a brute display to lure you back,
and my bluff manifested a brown-eyed gorilla from the west.
She battered you within the brown sack,
(she was asking for it, I warned her of the dangers)
and you risked danger to come to my rescue.

The gorilla rent your brown skin for my sake,
then rode away into the sunset
(with mariachis playing in my mind),
leaving me with John and shreds of you.

Frankendoodle

I gave you my pen and lost my voice at sea—
No! no no, now I am stranded and wet—
You yanked the string and snatched the prize away.
I fell on my face and looked up in despair,
and my upper lip faltered and flew away,
and then my beauty fled from my scalp.
At twenty-four, I became withered and obsolete,
and the muse eloped with you to Bikini Bottom.

You created a creature in my image,
sick, despairing, irate and brutish,
brought to life by the imaginative act—
(It’s lacking perspective)
(Well everyone’s a critic)
He sprung from the dirt and screamed at you,
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, may,
and battered you across the head and neck.
Doy, oy mee, eeoi ayaya,
he resides in crude fiction with bitter spikes,
nyaofineyin, meehoiney hoy.
He drew a hole in the sand
and trapped you there,
burning palms and hugging me for warmth,
the wicked bastard—meeaioi meemoiay neyoioiminoy.
He's hideous. He makes me sick, just looking at him:
The scars and injuries, the bursting veins,
two eyes and hair, the cruelty of his words.
(I created this monster, and I have to stop him).

He resurrects to torment you,
Bawa bwa bwa wa;
the creature tries to smear your face,
invades your home and tampers with your things,
wa way meehoy wa eeoi.
I told you that the creature has to die,
we cannot live with him between us still,
shrieking and abusing you in lies.
(You’ve made your point)
(You’re going to pay for that)
Meehoiney hoy. Wa may meow.
In terror, you exterminated me,
erasing every moment with my tools—
in two dimensions trapped within the world,
perhaps I was the artist after all.
I pray to win my pencil back again.
Naynoineeoinay. Nya, nyanya.
Yayaoiaya. Meehaba waba baba.
Wa. wa. wa. wa. may.

Naughty Nautical Neighbors

The cephalopod came between us,
envy with its tentacles strangling,
My sweet professions slaughtered by the brown rebuke
which muttered insults into the air:
your head blots out the sun,
you’re dangerous, you’re ugly,
your scars are hideous,
You’re an ingrate.
It’s what you are.
You’re a bigger one.
You know what else is yellow?
You are.
I never want to see you again anyway.

I crushed myself under the brown rock and grinned,
choking on the fork I used to wound, I win.
I practiced my clarinet solo:
Solitude in E Minor, E minor yea.
You didn’t know the nausea every day
as I walked to distractions in the cold,
stomach sinking for want of you in sea.

No no stay back away from me I’ll save you.
Hold on get away I’m ruined I feel great.
A real friend would perform for you,
serenading with harsh overtures,
hollering to recover what was lost.
You were my best friend in the world,
you were my best friend in the sea,
you were the strawberry in my eye,
but you loved your misery more than me,
and that’s why your a cruel
ungrateful
wretched
little whore.
I manifested a frenzy with my hate
to justify the gaping carnal wound
as I impaled your head with the horsehair bow.
That was disgusting; I need to scrub myself,
I say as I walk into the dark booth
to give a litany of misdeeds to my best friend.
But soon I find myself in rubbish again.

The envy pours us drinks, but I take two.
I need more. My glass is full, but I don’t know it now.
I hope to laugh again on clouds of air,
extinguishing the cruel bubbles which divorced us.
I know I can just walk away right now—
what have we learned today?
Go be friends somewhere else,
I think he’s jealous, how pathetic my love.

Shanghaied

(Argh, I’m being held here against my will)
and so you mount the cannon after me
which singes my flesh and torches my black beard.
We live in the cartoon
which warps my overtures and attributes,
(That’s not a baby; that’s a giant anchor).
I didn’t do it, my hands are clean,
but we recur the same routine:
hurt and betrayal, welcome black,
and green the flames my flames on the horizon.
It will be grueling, numb the mind,
It will be grueling, numb the mind.
How does he do that?—it’s a mystery.
and so it would seem we have reached an impasse.
I will not set you free—I will eat you.
The authors divided our story in three
and fate digests us regardless

You made me tender, with the band around my head,
making kale smoothies and waxing pacific.
The danger vanished, so you thought
as you beheld the tender creature you spawned
who would have you in a salad after dinner.
Strain and hurt and ignorance forever.
I burdened my little brain with the affair,
(I want to file a complaint),
about the dirty ship and lazy,
and stupid you fucking bitch,
where are your ears?
and eyeballs burst with veins and trickle blood.
I pull out saccharine rubber;
and we will weep and gnash our teeth
for eternity inside the hideous green beast
with roaches crawling through my bathroom sink.
Who is this strange new face aboard the ship?
Perhaps I know you, you seem familiar to me;
I think I saw you grocery shopping in Queens,
or perhaps we met before another time.
Perhaps you flee at the sight of me.
Or if we cross, we will be crushed
by the heavy air between two strangers,
hello, hello, how do you do,
I’m pleased to meet again for the last time.


NICHOLAS DOLINGER is a writer, podcaster, and epistemological terrorist currently exiled from the United States


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