BECOMING CONSCIOUS AFTER EATING A YELLOW MOON**


yesterday I ate a yellow moon
as it rode low, and slowly
encountered a twilight sky.
it tasted like vanilla crunch.
but you know, eating the moon
gives you a headache,
like the kind you get if your face
was slammed against the wall,
then kicked in the gut
when you were down.
the kind of headache
I’ve had since I was three;
at least that is what I was told.
I can’t remember much
about those early days.
besides the headaches,
I have been deaf since ten
and I carry a limp as well
as a glass eye
from having philosophical
discussions with each cellar step
as I bounced down.
I now find it hard to open the cellar door
cause I swear I hear crying
coming from down there.
I know it must be me
sprawled on the blood soaked floor
and I think I might go crazy
if I saw myself.

~~~

you know what’s really crazy though?
for the longest time
I loved him; would follow him
do everything I could to please him.
bring him his pipe
or the newspaper
get him coffee.
except on those days
where his eyes were red
and he stank of ****. thenI would plead:
“oh daddy. don’t be mad at me.
please don’t hit me. no,
no, not mr. johnson, that
hurts so much.
I’ll be good. I promise.”

~~~

even now, I think I love him.
I never meant to push him back,
to knock him down the stairs
I guess if I had called
the ambulance right away
everything would have been okay.
but the judge said that it was wrong
to stab him so many times;
to cut off his johnson
and stick it in his mouth.
somehow though,
I never understood why.
it’s not like he begged
for mercy
and he never once cried!

~~~

I am home now,
back from another conversation
with electricity,
sitting in my room
at St. Mary’s starring blankly
at this huge, yellow moon.
as I savor its vanilla crunch,
I am trying to understand why
I feel like I am to blame?
trying to remember if I ever smile;
work up the courage to hate him.

(Written under this pen name)
~~redzone 10/29/02
Posted as Aztec Warrior 10.31.15