after each   tough event,   you two would sit Kathy
and I down    either in early mornings   or late nights   and say:
we’ve only got  each other    we can’t trust the world
or something alluding to how alone we were here in New York,
no friends, no family     hell, no neighbors
and   sometimes, mom would use her illness to get back at you for cheating
or for getting home late from work    but little did she know
you’d smack her head side to side    when her blood sugar
dropped  and dropped   and dropped   til she was unconscious
and Kathy and I gained so much freakin weight    we had no idea how
to love ourselves     when I got my first job  all I wanted
was    to go out to gay bars and get drunk
I learned from the best     to get angry      dad would break apart
all the cabinets   when he couldn’t deal   with all the stuff   going
around and around   and around
and mom     didn’t know   how to love herself   enough  to teach us
and we still      don’t know