THE REMAINS OF MY FATHER
I picked up a bust my mother
made of my incarcerated father’s head.
I threw it against her 1960’s tile kitchen floor,
and it shattered into a million different pieces.
I gazed at my trembling hands and
licked the blood across my knuckles
after I broke my parents’ hearts
with my revenge killing. I’ve endured
many sleepless nights draped in
a heavy guilt that has left me drenched
in a kind of shame reserved for tainted
angelic boys with the same conscience
that tortured my mother at her
every mistake. I grew up to poison
myself until I transformed
into a supernatural monster
from a place much worse than
any of the kinds of perceived hell’s
they failed to scare me straight with
in order to embrace the false promise
of an indifferent heaven,
a heaven that took away
our lost souls and shattered them
all into a million different pieces.
____________
JUST ANOTHER FACE IN AN ANGRY MOB
The supermarket
is an endless line
into the weary indecision
of coupon expiration dates
and my personal
lack of an appetite
for even the most repellent
canned discount meats
smelling of wet roast beef farts
that haunt daydreams
under the poisoned influence
of uncertainty
in the awakening
of a home made ugliness
they curse me with
for clearing my throat
near their healthy,
expensive fresh produce,
salad fix-in’s for
what could be
the end of the world
before I kick them
all in the balls and run.
____________
MY OLD DRUG DEALER
He smiles ear to ear
across Cherry Avenue
at the 7 Eleven,
ready for me
to buy
some crystal
which he paws
into the palm
of my hand.
I flick it with
a finger steady
enough to claim
nine months
off dope.
I tell him
I’m clean now,
but he thinks
I’m full of shit.
He stands there
in the fizzled glow
of an empty,
burned out laundromat,
waiting for me to fall
so he can swoop
in and catch me.