Every few years, the new kid at the trailer park.
Play behind the propane getting home before it’s dark.
The new kid gotta face the old dude.
It’s either how ya doin’ or bullied and screwed.
A family full of black sheep looking for a herd.
MLM, Amway, or right-wing media.
Cults and Jesus freaks, they’re the encyclopedia.
Never found a story they couldn’t swallow.
A pyramid conspiracy that they wouldn’t follow.
Another opportunity. Another broken scam.
Another broken promise to take away the glam.
Spend money to make it, the hook is set.
Just like the last times but then they forget.
Another home, another hole, another school to skip.
Never had the tickets, so couldn’t miss the ship
It sailed so long ago, I was tangled in a placenta
So fuck the captains of the ship and the fuckers who sent ya
They call it envy when angry, but I just want to eat
want to stop all the noises
want to have warm, dry feet
no skills to express the trauma that is felt
So the answer is found at the end of a belt
It was swung at first, then found in the hand
The belt has kept swinging to meet the demand
that the child won’t be spoiled, and the rod is long gone
until it swings on the belt and the cycle has won
The box it is pretty, the crowd it is strange
another chapter is closed, another memory exchanged
Healing leaves tissue of random connections
Trauma leaves traces of hidden infections
Goodbye is something that never gets heard
by those who need to hear that one compound word
I am sorry for existence
But thanks for the ride
Loved you from biology
I forgive the lost pride
Forgive my transgression
and the spite for existence
I only stay above ground at the others’ insistence.
Carry gifts from the womb to the welcoming tomb
burn and distribute me to the corners of earth
or launch the ashes into space so the planet can birth
the wasted matter that was all but consumed
by the terrors of existing
and the widening wound.