Sippy Chicken is me, 

and he is I. 

Sippy Chicken is insatiable

as if his taste buds dry 

and shrivel exponentially

with each passing nanosecond. 

Does he realize just how stupid he looks? 

With his cheesy blue hat, 

stupidly long legs –

oversized thighs and

scrawny calves, 

crossed eyes, and 

ugly long neck? 

Bowing an eternal kowtow 

to a lukewarm glass of tap –

such a pathetic sight to see.

Sippy Chicken 

doesn't know how to ''work smart,

not hard.''

Sippy Chicken 

doesn't realize

that a longer dip will keep his thirst at bay

and instead survives off shallow increments

that temporarily gratify his plastic tongue. 

He's useless – besides sapping

away bits of water molecules every second 

to quicken the process of liquid evaporation –

Sippy Chicken is a waste of space.

Perhaps we perch him 

on our drinking glasses

because he makes us feel better 

about our own failures.

No matter what we regret,

no matter how we think we've wasted

our mortal lives –

We know

we will never be as pitiful 

as Sippy Chicken.

But is Sippy Chicken stupid

of his own free will? 

Maybe he's just obsessive-compulsive. 

Perhaps he thinks

that if he doesn't sip every second, 

the world will explode,

and the Gods of the Underworld 

will ravage the Earth. 

Maybe he's a war criminal –

a modern-day Sissyphus

Serving a painfully pointless sentence – 

living an eternal existence

of backbreaking meaninglessness.

Maybe dipping is his mating dance –

he has not the wings to reveal

beautiful feathers 

to entice a female.

So he instead puts on an acrobat's show

of endurance and flexibility.

But what can we learn from Sippy Chicken? 

Sippy Chicken is the master of moderation

He has achieved a perfect balance in life –

Never losing momentum, never slipping 

off the precarious edge of a drinking glass.

He can see both himself in his reflection

and reflect upon the world around him

when he comes up for breath.

Sippy Chicken is the pinnacle of perseverance. 

He has demonstrated grit and stamina 

to one singular, tedious goal.

A virtue

unseen in a human race

defined by idleness and attention deficit. 

Sippy Chicken opens himself

to the gentle indifference of the world –

learning to ride on the swoops of gravity

and accept the rapid tides of change.

Sippy Chicken

may seem like a directionless

imbecile. He may be a prisoner

of his own desires. He may just be

a blind, water-nosing freak of nature.

But don't judge

Sippy Chicken

because you may find fragments

of yourself — your triumphs and 

your weaknesses

beneath his plastic exterior

And you may very well

have something to learn

from the peculiar wisdom

bobbing in his head.