between the concrete river
& the park where the bums share a bottle
wrapped in a brown paper sack,

there is a cul-de-sac of plastic houses
holding hands & sharing manicured lawns
wooden cars that don't even make any smoke
drive down gray asphalt streets.

fathers that tell mothers they have jobs
wear down street corners sharing beers with the bums,
like they already are one.

all these paper families rubbing shoulders
until everyone has paper cuts.
going home to dinner around a table full of paper love.

suburbia is flimsy
paper towns shining white
smiling neighbors & shared lawns
paper people slowly falling apart.

couples with their tongues down each other's throats,
midnight in supermarket parking lots
dribbling beer in the backseat
they bought off the bums.  

they say,
I love you, I love you, I love you.
until she leaves for a paper husband
& he leaves for a paper wife.

now they live on two separate cul-de-sacs
with the same cutout love,
as the parents they despised.

& when they have kids one day
they will tell them
never kiss before driving,
never befriend bums,
or guzzle cheap beer in backseats,
or on park swings.
& never settle for a paper husband
or a paper wife.

remembering the love
that was flimsy,
but never paper.

100,000 miles away from where they grew up
& 3,000 miles away from each other
3 kids each & plastic houses
rubbing shoulders & sharing lawns

living in a paper thin suberbia
chafing under their paper love.

Your words told her
to love herself.
But your actions told her
no one else would.