Cord Moreski
Teenage Wasteland
for Tohm Bakelas
Eighteen is a few hours away
and with that you’ll leave
with only a high school education
a duffle bag full of clothes
a Greyhound schedule
you’ve memorized for months
and pay saved from washing dishes
and scrubbing away at shit stains in toilet bowls
your mother will be too busy
snorting oxy on the dinner table to notice
your stepfather too hungover to challenge
your manliness to another fistfight
you raise the volume on your radio
and hum along to the music playing
but not too loud
while you glance over your shoulder
then back out your bedroom window
into the quiet, inviting night.
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