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The Once and Future Tyrant

by Mike Standaert

I made my mother cry
By telling her, one day
I would be a Five Star General

Was it because
I never became one?

I was only six years old

The next day I wanted
To be God
Because we heard he was great
And the next
The neighborhood barber
Because he had the coldest Pepsi
And God had never given me a Pepsi

But I didn't want to see her cry
So I didn't tell her
About those

bio

Mike Standaert is 29-year old American journalist and writer currently residing in Illinois after returning from Europe where he was freelancing and studying for two years. He is European managing editor of Critique Magazine; and also helped found a freelance organization in Belgium. Fiction, poetry and essays have or will appear in Left Curve, Hobart, Exquisite Corpse, Absinthe Literary Review, The Drunken Boat, Spoonfed Amerika and others.