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.