Submissive, permissive
The son and the father.
Furtive, pensive
The mother and her daughter.

A family of sides,
a relationship of colors.
Blue, grey, black, white,
of the bruises on each other.

Daddy Dearest takes a sip
of his favorite poison chosen.
Mommy Darling breaks a hip
upon the floor she lays frozen.

Girl and boy, husband and wife
Innocence, poor girl, is dead.
When she leapt off the ledge of life
a smile glued on an empty head.

Dead girls make pretty pictures
against the son's sweat-stained wall
it's so hard to follow ardent strictures
when all he wants is love from them all.

Husband drunkard, daughter gone.
This poor family's gone awry.
Son of obsessions, mother harmed,
why can't this family all just die?