my mother used to dress me up

with pink and baby blue

she used to sit and scowl at me

for using too much glue.

on all the projects i failed in school

cuz i never saw my daddy’s face

he was always off to work somewhere

in a cold and lonely place.

and as he cuddled with his cash

the four of us would sing

the songs of gospel and a dying man

who rose again and was called king.

and when my daddy was away

i would come across the paper men

who knew they’d float higher than me

and said i looked a certain way and then,

they smacked their lips and tongued their teeth

and smoked their cigarettes

and without fail they always gunned me down

with a stare and beads of sweat.

thats a fine looking high-horse you got there

in the hollow of this hot and southern drum

theres not a lot of girls like you

that would kneel for a pack of gum.

i used to think i owned the world

because i made my dolls queens and kings

but soon enough i realized

that those were nothing more than things.

and i was one as well to them

a thing to hate like daddy’s bills

they liked to break my arms and legs

and hunt me for the ****.

but after all the fun and games

and smoke that burned your eyes

i came to know that i was sin

with a kept secret between my thighs.

and plastic jesus only sat

on his high and mighty shelf

and despite my prayers or

shut-eyes confessions

he never moved himself.

and what could help me more than that man?

certainly not mother in her cool dark room

and not my daddy raking cash

in some business ridden flume.

here i reside in this truman show life

smoking cigarettes of my own

suffocating memories and

ignoring the phone.

one day there might be someone new

whose teeth are white and straight.

whose hair is neat and eyes are kind

whose clothes don’t spill their

hate.

but till that day i sit and feel and

keep my head down on the floor

because theres nothing more that i can do

but drown in metaphors