As I recall I was five the first time I met the monster in disguise
He threw my brother's plate to the ground
He told him to eat off the floor like the dog that he was
Then kicked him while he was down
He laughed and he laughed at the spectacle taking place
And I cried and I cried for my brother’s sake

The very next morning I stared up at him from his lap
I was trying to see if it was the man or a mask

A few months later I had my answer as the man was hitting home runs
On my brother’s flesh and bones
He smiled like a jester as my brother was ******* his pants
We rode in silence to Sunday school
And I saw it happen clear as day when the monster slipped on the mask of my father
The one I knew and loved

A couple years later and a thousand more tears
My mother wept as she answered the call
The monster had drawn the last straw
As he took my brothers innocence during the night in that hotel room

Then they came like angels and whisked us away
The men dressed in suites with badges of authority
We were safe for the first time

As I look back I still miss the mask but not the man

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

Breathing innocence,
Abandoned and prior pathos.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

Found, was her nest, but
Lost, was the feather who’d brought her.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

An ear nigh my heart,
And a heart I’d thought dead.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

And so, let the world be round,
And so let the world be perfect.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest.

The world was determined
To be where it was that day
And so each time sinned
Was inevitable in that way

The master of puppets
Thus the plot twister
Blows the trumpets
At the evil mister

Who killed a protagonist
Then himself hanged
Thus an antogonist
Inevitably becomes determinist

When he finaly does see
He is not free to be
While the protagonist
Rises up free

Into chaos
The arms of uncertainty

i guess i can do
a blue sky.
but i like mine

grey and
splayed out,
sleepily burnished -
yuh know,
that something that
brings out

monochrome feral tones,

with a few
exposed
crevices
every now and then

to polish
me off
good.