I saw the smooth hands of children grow calloused,
sanded by the empty hopes
that the cold has whittled down and sharpened into crucifixion nails.  
Dragging their feet through broken glass and street waste, one shoe one sock,
I thought they were just urban children, or the ones
in malaria countries. But I see them stagger now, older, defeated
baring their bodies and chewing on their brains, teaching the little ones
how to polish shoes and hide in alleys that smell like **** and assault.
That one looks like me, his guardian about my size, so I pull my coat closer.
I recognize him from school in the smell of unwashed hair and the gurgle of
A self-digesting gut, nothing to soak up the acid that burns his throat.

I watched the world ******* them into hunched shoulders and boney legs
that have forgotten how to hug and run, trapping them in a constant state of shuffling
to the music of moans and cries for help. They come together in an urchin clan underneath bridges and on the exit ramps of highways.
Prophets of the future clutching at signs about war and veterans, the bad economy and the children they can’t feed.
Ten dollars to the one with the mut. Offer him a smoke.

Politicians act like clean-up crews, counting them like statistics;
This one is gone, the one on Brown street died,
We got rid of the one looking for cans in the student neighborhood.

Charity elevates them into a an opportunity—
A little money to the unfortunate is like bleach for your soul. Just enough
to get the smell of affair out of your hair, or to clean up the poison in your veins.
God helps the outcasts; five dollars ought to do it.

I shudder at our similarities. Brown hair, brown eyes, smart.
His sign ignores no rules of grammar and deserve credit for its precise calligraphy,
The dog at his side is ***** and worn like the stuffed toy
I covet from the nights in my crib—the same. He is a victim of people, I am a victim of people
Both someone’s child, both like dogs.
I watch as he turns into a younger man, and then an old man, and then a woman,
A child with no shoes and crucified hands, the boy in my class with eyes that devour.

I walk home, wondering what kind of charity will save me from myself.
And that is the problem.

Pick up the bones
Littered on the ground like a necklace
You made when you were five
Out of sea shells and mermaid hair
Wishing that you had scales and that you could swim
Because little girls don’t play in sandboxes anymore
But in their mothers’ makeup
Pretending to get fake injections in their face
Popping Smarties that they wish were diet pills
While they wait for their ******* to come in
The ones like Barbie’s: disproportional to her body—
A twenty pound weight that forces you forwards
With puckered lips and wrinkled spine—
Setting them up for disappointment and therapy
That comes in exactly the same shade of pink as the doll house
That promises real answers and quick fixes
Which figurines can’t convincingly lie about
Because they are more real as a plastic piece of childhood
Than the science behind depression and the statistically-backed  
positives of fancy water with antioxidants.

Pick up the bones
While little boys play with firecrackers and rocks
Popping them at the feet of faceless passersby
Wondering if the snaps are anything like the guns
From COD instead of WWII
Hoping that the girl next door will grow up to be a ****
But more interested in her mom being a cougar
That cigarettes will stop being bad for them
Because Indiana Jones made them look so cool
And leather jackets will always be in style
So they grow bored with legos and G.I. Joe’s
Because there’s no ***, no violence in imagination—
Not real violence anyway.

So bend down and pick them up
The shattered remains of what was left of the pretend baby
You thought you wanted
What was left of you before you remembered to dye your hair
And to darken your eyes with black smudges
What was left of your brother before he joined the army
Before he fell inside a scotch bottle and drowned
In the amber liquid that reminded him of *****
Passed down from your father.
Clutch at what was left of your sister before she wasted away into
The shallow shell of what she thought was beautiful
To the point of emaciation
Because pointed elbows and sunken cheeks
Will get her the movies she thinks she wants
And that you know she won’t get because she’s
Become too fake, too plastic to play a’real-boy.’

Now put them in your pocket
Because the wind is blowing and you’re afraid they will fly away
Afraid you will too without them to weigh you down
To keep you here.

Tuck them up and wrap them in mermaid hair and sea shells
And wish that you could be the person who played in sandboxes
And only cried if she got shampoo in her eyes
The one who made necklaces instead of doctor’s appointments
And laughed at herself instead of being tired all the time.

You put them in your pocket
And pray that someday you’ll figure out how to put them back together
Stand them up like a statue
One that you can make wave or frown
But not smile because you can’t remember what theirs looked like
(And it wouldn’t be realistic anyway)
So that you can make-believe
they never fell apart in the first place and that you never fell apart with them.

When You Should Be Doing Homework

You dig for your future inside a mirror,
Excavating pimples, drowning in your pupils,
Wondering if the road map that gathers around
The belt of your iris will make you look wise
After fifty years of blinking—or
If the folds in your skin will bookmark a chapter
Where you let them close for too long
Memorializing a missed-out stripe.

You lean closer to the better half of yourself,
The one that gets to look real
in a cold glass surface
Without enduring the social blemish
that comes with authenticity
And a lack of caked on makeup.

You count the pores on your nose.
The weight of silent opinions and swallowed up worries
Split the edges of your lips wide open like a sore.
You look inside; behind the fillings, under the flood of saliva, inside the flesh of your gums,
For the shelves where advice for your unborn children
will sit and gather dust; yellowing like old bones and tasting like coffee.
Don’t marry your mattress.
The way to a man’s heart is bacon.
Sticks and stone don’t usually look like sticks and stones.

If those children become anything like you are now,
it’s a safe bet they will have selective deafness.
You imagine your graying hair and huskied voice
spewing life lessons drilled into you
by your parents, Hallmarks cards, and people who call themselves poets—

Make sure your smile matches the color of the dry cleaned heart your wear on your sleeve.
If you want to do well in school, learn how to *******.
Never own / wear anything studded.
One day you’ll want to die your hair a rebellious color, thinking it’s cool: go for it. To hell with the people who will give a ****.
One day you’ll want a concert t-shirt with wholes and stains that spell out ‘****’: go for that too, you’ll learn the hard way those are the hardest to wash.

You step away from the echo of your eyes in the mirror,
feeling sorry for the future responsibilities
you’ll try hard to raise into good people.
Mom and Dad don’t always know best.
Don’t look in the mirror and think about the future. You’ll only see your hair gray.
Do your homework.
Keep your socks clean.
Use protection.

You pull yourself out of your mouth
Gulp down the darkness in your pupils,
Letting your face return to normal—the road map sinking into your skin, disappearing.
That future is too close for you to conjure it in the mirror.

Even without the weight of wrinkles,
Your eyes are too tired to stay open.