my sadness is broken.  my mother sits beside me on the top step as I **** with the laces of shoes I’ve had on for hours.  I am trying to place myself in front of the woman who while holding a bowling ball asked me to **** my cigarette.  mom has been falling asleep in front of a tv turned on by a mind of its own.  I don’t want to be touched.  god for now belongs to the hand that went crooked and circled every date on this month’s calendar.  after eleven guesses I say jesus mom is he gay.  I don’t see how this will become me knowing all along.  my father is a man of many words he can’t pronounce without some stranger getting knocked up on the radio.  there’s nothing in the water, nothing in the air.  I get my people from the store and bring them to a carnival that exists because of food poisoning.  I think my belly button is a cigarette burn that makes me want kids.  I have a brother who will wet the bed well into his ninth year.  I include him here as the brother around for this.