It was the little things,

like doing dishes and folding laundry that

set me off.

“FOLD LAUNDRY! WASH THE DISHES! DO CHORES!”

He’d yell and she would just sit there and watch.



We got cursed at and she’d look away.

We’d get spanked and she looked away.

We got full-body massages at nine and eleven;

she looked away.



We, the royal me, yes, was a clean, polite girl with no self

Esteem, who sought perfection but saw flaws

And scars. We could cook and clean and

****, we used manners,

We smiled.



But we, of a degenerate kind, had

the nerve to use our mind and explore

all kinds of places. we used it

in thriving and dying, we used it in wailing and lying and failing

and crying—we used it in intellect

in friends—in the happiest of situations—unlike in adolescence

we surpassed it, kicked it’s *** and learned a thing or two about the brain;

all kinds of literature proved we weren’t just insane!

These ideas, these geniuses, these mistakes amongst ourselves

Let us see how life can be such a glorious hell!

Art and fiction, the laws of science, seeing the universe in our soul:

It makes us feel whole. But even in with this kind,

unstable state of mind, we regress when

Set off by treacherous memories like doing dishes and

folding laundry.