"midwestern" poems
the blank face of a blow up doll beneath a numberless clock.
a sleeping bag outside of a boy.
two brothers rumored to have nursed
at the wrists of their father
to reach the same
high note.
gripping a rolling pin with both hands
my mother on the tin roof of a neighbor’s shed.
a dove circling a church bell
to elude the crow
it was.
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 1:34 PM UTC
Colorado,Colorado,
I wish I was in Colorado.
Where puffers stand in line
to have a good-old-time.
I wish you were in Colorado
and puff away your blues,
and have a restful snooze.
Where people laugh
out loud and make their puffers' cloud.
And people stop and stare
into thought provoking air,
and talk about the deeper things
in life.
Sensuous summer fills
my mind
between my munchies
all the time.
My tastebuds shout in glee
with popcorn near my reach
and soda made of peach.
Colorado, Colorado,
I hear you callin' me
forget about that tree
of good and evil be.
And smoke away-at times-
those nasty nursery rhymes
cramped between
folders made of black.
Colorado,Colorado,
I wish I was in Colorado
to get a mountain high.
Where puffers' stand in line
to have a good-old-time...
Since not allowed to light
we're allowed to write:
"Let the **** reign forever"
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 11:02 PM UTC
the hills were beginning to grow
the grass greening on the approach
to Blue Earth, and how
in summer
Minnesota shed her old coat
to shy guilty into brief silty lakes
like the
joy of a little kid, sneaking a forbidden dip.
remarking, casually, about
white warm flowers hung low from
planned oaks, and the impossible way the town
pulled local hills close, to coat
in dandelions. and cultivate
all under an ambitious midwestern sun.
rolling through the stop sign, hand on mine
you told me if you’re moving at all
you should keep it in second gear.
and we had so far to go, but in the light that
broke through westbound clouds,
we became less so.
contented to spread toes out in earth we
dug into Minnesota, the middle coast:
a land we could like to get to know.
and you:
looking down at the salt, the sand, the scars of
the grand american plantation:
the last coast.
knowing that by the next coast, we
you and me.
we'd be through.
saying, ‘how could anybody die?’
saying,
‘how could anybody tell you anything true?’
undercut by the honest waves of the little lake,
the hum that drummed in my gas tank.
trying, for once, at a little piece of truth:
when I leave this place I leave
a part of me behind.
and that part of me
will be you.
saying there’s only so much sweetness in the soil,
only so long after the thaw,
and grief is rich and dark and made for sowing:
must be, for maintaining verdant local hills, must be
for to keep corn sweet. must be for to put
grief
on the table. must be for to
keep with us.
for to keep a little bit to eat.
saying, we bleed but together we make a hole
to bury both our bodies in.
saying there’s a west out west but too late it’s
already hemmed us in.
saying now I am only a fragile assimilation of this weak
and fractured purpose that drives me, and you are
beautiful enough I would lie to let you love me.
even I would scorch this soil if only things wouldn’t grow I would
saying Blue Earth is still in the trucker's atlas is
only an excuse for sunshine. a point,
where freeways go.
saying,
“with earth, so green, that here they call it 'Blue'.”
saying
“I could learn to love a leopard.”
saying
“how dare you.”
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 7:20 AM UTC
your face is imprinted on the underside of my skull,
but I doubt I left as much as a mark across your skin.
I tried to gain your appreciation but you were sarcastic
and hardened by enough years of abuse.
I have been abused, let’s share our lack of emotions.
Let’s laugh with the crinkle of our eyes
and show courtesy with the bend of our hats,
creating a secret language that we’ll share across the room
when you pretend you know who I am.
This heart I give to you is forever promised
and held upon my lips to be by your side
until you die.
After that, the heart will be promised to another.
And whether you make it to thirty or not,
I will be younger, wiser,
and better than anyone you’ve ever met
because I’ve studied your limbs,
the way your eyes twinkle when you’re hurting,
the way you smoke your cigarettes.
I know your stupid Midwestern accent.
I know how you like to do your hair,
whether it’s short and straight,
or slightly longer and curled so tightly.
And I have practiced basketball so I can play
just like your favorite player.
And I can skate circles around you,
especially with that smoker’s cough -
Lucky Strike, unfiltered, a pack a day for 3 months.
Sep 5, 2012
Sep 5, 2012 at 4:14 PM UTC
on a rainy day your body spread over a picnic table
like an egg yolk, and you swallowed the word profound
again and again.
someone from your past
has gone beneath the ocean, leafless
and you can hear the wailing from here to the saginaw
people begin to breathe blood: they’re choking up, soughing
“be easy buddy” and
“he wanted a black eye for prom so i punched him in the face”
flowers arrived at the door, a ghost, an ear of corn
while everything yearned tall: frames, shadows,
in st. louis you circle a bit of claret earth
spotting your sister’s face in the mirror, leaving linseed and shreds
i could never ask how you are.
the wail is a train whistle, i hear it pauses
for no softness of flesh, these midwestern daughters
she loved all living things.
imagine carefully painting a boat
a pencil in your teeth,
cutting through earth, the nantucket sound
you’re going to take your boat beyond
this firmament, you know, we’re all
waiting through this salty crush
sinking below a winter current
this is all yours now:
mainsail, rudder, hard-a-lee
you darling masters of the sea.
for PW and LE. goodnight.
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 8:31 PM UTC
Grey-Green-Red-Brown Dawn
stains right through a.m. sky
so the atmosphere
looks weird today.
The forecast calls for heat again;
that silent, seething drum that beats
the blood-drenched dollar sky--
beats out a March of Ages--
beats us copper lumps to shape.
The shelf we Occupy on this drifting
westward continent, constructed from
the flesh that fell from our fathers' hands,
from the bones of distant lands
becomes a dusty storage closet
for the corpses of our days
Our days--aha.
That's supply and demand, kid.
What's a life but flesh-time?
And what's time if not money?
Nothing!
Nothing is anything
but money.
You. Are money.
Like time.
Sleep well tonight. And set your clock.
You gotta work to buy their robots
that **** Mid-Eastern skies
(and Midwestern ones alike)
Sink real slow beneath the surface
of that rising ocean of noise--
growing louder--hot air melting ice caps.
Watch that boiling, acid ocean
roll in on the tide and sink
beneath the waves of noise--
of monotone voices--
sawdust seasoning on cardboard--
crying, "These colors don't run!"
and, "Stand your ground!"
and for fun, when bored, answer the
Call of Duty.
It's that silent, seething drum
beating 'gainst THE TERRORISTS
while we deny the summer heat
as we sweat in SUPERBOWL SUNDAY dreams,
Like it beat against the COMMUNISTS
through all our TOP GUN weekends,
Like it drums up portraits of
vampire fanged IMMIGRANTS
and ILLEGALS
while we guzzle our BEER
and sweat beneath those acne-scarred skies
on the FOURTH OF JULY.
Sleep well tonight
And set your clock.
Don't wanna be late for work,
to buy their robots that **** Mid-Eastern skies
(and Midwestern ones alike).
What's that hum outside your window tonight,
whirring, buzzing
droning
beneath the blood-drenched dollar sky?
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 12:40 PM UTC
The slam poet in cords, in denim,
rambles from neon beer haven
to flybuzz brothel, cracking quiet
jokes about soup to shiny junebugs
in the relentless moonlight.
One hundred dollars in thirty-five bills
slowly retreat from wallet
toward water-cut whiskey.
He’s got a chapbook widely
available at frozen yogurt shops
across the metro; he’s got a
tour in the works, tri-county,
every middle school from
Shawnee to Seminole; he’s
got a collection of ex-girlfriends,
made up almost entirely of wizened lesbians;
he’s got an MFA from UNC Wilmington,
and he shouts this more than speaks this
from his treacherous barstool to the sleepy bartender.
One of the girls, she takes him upstairs,
and to her he says, Your freckles—islands
in the sea of your milk-white skin.
The night passes, warehouses are razed,
and he watches the loft apartments emerge.
The food trucks come. He parks beside them,
typing poems made to order out of his trunk. The
money flows in, crumpled and sweaty and
in one-dollar denominations. The Old Fashions
transfigure into Old English. And in his pocket
thesaurus he looks for a word. It’s not vagrant,
nor vagabond. It’s not homeless, nor wayward.
He lies in the long shadow of a Midwestern sunset,
starved and shaking. Up from the blackened
city shrubs comes an indifferent breeze and
just as he thinks the word Pauper, he dies one
on the corner of 23rd and Western.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 4:14 PM UTC
From this tree, they lynched John T,
for the crime of speaking
against slavery. Dead now, this spar
stands among Holsteins
in the pasture of a man
who figures we’re cousins somehow.
He, a midwestern farmer,
me, a California craftsman,
political poles apart
but blood is thicker than geography.
Ancient black walnut
hollowed by rot is tough to salvage.
Working together with chain saw
and wrecking bar we find a section
of solid core, and on the surface
a scar like a grinning face
where the branch broke off,
long gone one hundred fifty years,
the branch that held the rope
that swung John T’s three hundred and fifty
pounds of muscle and fat and bluster
until it snapped.
John T, who was the grandfather
of my grandfather, ran into the forest
where his best friend rescued him,
a man named, ironically, Lynch,
grandfather of the grandfather
of the man with whom I speak.
Thus, cousins — in the country way.
I’ll make salad bowls, I say,
wooden forks and tongs,
walnut plates, maybe even a tea set
for your daughter
who seems so outspoken,
so feisty and strong.
Tea set? he says, she needs a lectern!
So here it is.
The grinning knot on the surface.
Those holes in the side, from bullets.
Lead slugs. I dug them out.
Here, this cloth sack.
May she heft them in her fist.
May her words
fire like cannons
for freedom.
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 1:06 PM UTC
A ****** midwestern Somali
was feeling and acting quite jolly.
This homegrown jihadi
employed his own body
in hacking (not cyber). Thanks, Ali.
Nov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 at 7:28 PM UTC
when i was little, a kid I rode the bus with told me that alligators lived in the sewers. I still think of that to this day, and watch my step around street drains.
when I was even younger, I asked my mom how the stoplight turned from red to green. She said "theres a mouse inside of them and some cheese. When the mouse goes to eat the cheese, then the light turns green!"
I believed it.
And some days, when i'm driving aimlessly through town, I remember the mouse and the cheese when I get stuck at a light.
I've always been afraid of drains, whether in pools or bathtubs. Maybe it stems from the kid who told me the alligator lie. But either way, I still hate them. Possibly even more than ever.
I wish I had more memories of my childhood. The older I get, the more they become blurred, erased it seems. They survive through family photos stored in closets and old tapes with the wrong labels.
But for some reason, I do tend to remember the bad memories. Those never leave my mind. Like the alligators.
Now I am 29 going on 30. (Living the last couple hours of my 20's as I write this actually). I feel nostalgia setting in and I also feel sadness. It is officially the end of an era. My twenties will soon be a thing of the past. Just a moment in time.
We constantly grow. From baby to toddler, child to teen, and on to adulthood we go. Each year delicate as the last. Learning more about the world and the way things work.
I now know how traffic lights actually work. And I think I am certain alligators don't really live in our midwestern sewer systems.
And I'm also not ready to turn 30.
Apr 3, 2023
Apr 3, 2023 at 11:12 PM UTC
It was an atmosphere
It was an oxygen mixed with southern fog
Southpaw gloves tied in sailor knots
Waves of golden grains in ocean wind
The rolling hills behind property lines
It was the question you asked
not with words but in the way you breathed against the window glass
as I leaned against your Corolla
And we sang under the overpass
It was graffiti
It was graffiti
It was the cavernous concrete cats with purple hair and acid wash jean jackets
melting the light of their city's street lamps into the obsidian void of moistened pavement
It was the way the reverb spread the major seventh across the sky with burnt orange cascading into the violet of the minor ninth
which reminds me of crickets and summer nights (and violins and cellos and midwestern jazz bars)
and how bar chords are a guitarists way of flipping off a crowd-
surfing the web for an answer to why I'm still single-
handedly the handsomest man in my car currently.
It's the cloth in my empty passenger seat
soaking up the air of my A/C heat
and the scent of the soil spilt from the succulent I was given at a wedding last fall
and now I don't know if my trunk will ever smell clean at all
But I'll let this night be interstellar
I'll take a bath in the Big Dipper and write you a letter about Orion's Belt
or how I miss the stars sparkling in your eyes making contact with the E.T. in me.
Phone me home, darling.
I'm lost at sea.
-W.J. Thompson
Mar 30, 2017
Mar 30, 2017 at 1:13 AM UTC
Midwestern girl
with the slow slang
come a little closer
watch her do thangs
she'll usually have
two first names
fried chicken is probably her favorite;
that child loves a ****
don't forget a big old l o o o o n g danga lang
**** those country girls sho' a make ya head swang!!
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 5:24 PM UTC
All you are supposed to be is a change of scenery
(i've been here for four years, i've been me for seventeen)
Door opens to backpack skateboard and "I haven't showered in two weeks"
(i haven't slept in three)
Don't ask me what happened this isn't catching up
(how are you)
Show me what, I don't know
(you don't know either)
I laugh when I'm nervous
(what are you thinking)
(are you even a real girl)
(i dont think you are)
I am looking for a future in the back of a crystal ball bald head
(my band and i, we did it as a joke)
Instead give way to eight consecutive marks - neck, left shoulder, chest
(just like Hawaii, a place i have already been to, and you have not)
Come back
(where do you even go to)
You are a pop punk house show in a small town on a 97 degree Fahrenheit day in August in the basement of a friend of a friend whom I haven't seen since
Grade 9
(when i first heard of you)
Let me pretend that I'm drunk so you can pretend you didn't come here for this
(are you sure, i don't even have a ******
Leave at 9 o clock to make way for my 9:30
(stay another eight hours to **** with my head)
A triple kick-flick on a scorching Midwestern sidewalk
(teach me how and leave)
Prove you weren't as far off as i needed you to be
(it's only an hour if nothing comes up)
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 10:49 PM UTC
A ***** hybrid clouded his voice;
a southern drawl
and Midwestern daydream.
Mutt to himself, a fire to others,
a redundant reverie about a home
-- any home --
with pictures of bloodletting,
forgetting mothers, Adidas clad feet
belonging to hooded killers.
His hands sway in church
but his soul doesn't.
No belief in either concept:
God or soul.
Annoyed with the Christian claim
that one needs the other.
He speaks a voice that echoes,
then evolves into a rarity
too tame to flounder and fight,
too wild to sit and stare.
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 1:41 PM UTC
I'll put a brick in my hood
I'll throw a brick to ya dome
I'll shove about anything
To get me through up my nose
And I still flatter them hoes
And get their ******* all wet
Until they drip, drip outta the dryer
I'm washed up they said
Yeah, I'm sauced up too bad
Sick as **** in the head
Don't give a **** about bread
I'm busy countin' my lead
I'm about as sick as they get
So I break up some nugs
Have a *** count my stacks
Line my crib with straight thugs
One, two, three, six, click
Clappin' these sixes while she's suckin' my ****
Leavin' my Deagle 'cause I'm wantin' to live
Givin' heaven the finger 'cause I'm lovin' to sin
No one gonna stop me
Yeah, nothin' that can top me
I'd wreck a fuckin' Bentley
Then suit up on a Harley
Take a trip to Muncie
And load up on some chronic
And smoke until I'm smellin'
Like a farm of hydroponic
**** I gotta get my mind right
But I can't 'cause I'm livin' in the high life
Not a cent gets spent on a dime, right?
Wrong, I spend it all the time
And time keeps tickin'
My watch looks broke 'cause I can't stop spinnin'
Run outta smoke so I tryna hit some resin
My lungs stuck up, but I just keep rippin'
Them souls apart, them hoes apart
Nothin' but the best for my bros so far
I am the number one in this
God-forsaken little blip
Midwestern farmer ****
No one here allowed to spit
But I do everyday
While all my fuckin' neighbors be balin' that hay
Hooray, we got another couple mouths fed
'Til I force-feed 'em an entree of straight lead
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 11:55 PM UTC
sanguine comedians roll across the hills of
pop culture like waterfalls in Banff. Two
sriracha-soaked eggs gaze like ****** eye
***** gouged in a midwestern southern comfort.
short temperament and a sweet disposition.
short temperament and a sweet disposition.
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 9:03 PM UTC
Rose by any other name
sprouting in the city,
does not sell as sweet --
A dandelion plucked
from Midwestern soot,
blown to the wind, assumed
Out-shown by gardens
of the proven perennial
(once Violet, Lily, or Daisy)
Waiting on bated baby's breath
to blossom beyond marigold,
an undiscovered exotic
For this concrete jungle.
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 6:41 PM UTC
So That Others May Live
My son and I go down to the beach today
And lay claim to a small square of sand
Where we ***** a blue plantation of shade
Inside a red umbrella city founded by dermatologists.
Slow cooking like a pair of pork chops basted in SPF 30
He reads a Jack Reacher novel, myself the LA Times
Occasionally, he looks up from his book and shares a passage:
How about I show you the inside of an ambulance?
The girlfriend his from Kentucky has never been to the beach
She is ensconced in the best chair eating watermelon
Reading poetry by Rupi Kaur god bless her
She should have the best seat if she’s reading poetry.
People form Iowa and Minnesota you know the ones
In the parcel of sand between us and the ocean
Have lain towels and blankets far too near the tide line and
Come noon we enjoy their Midwestern diaspora to higher ground.
We body surf in waves that are bigger than they look
He wears the right fin and I wear the left
I bounce off the bottom and get my *** sand papered
Then tumble into him like a forgotten dollar bill in a wash machine.
In the parking lot laughing and spitting salt water
I pour a bucket of sand out of my wetsuit onto the hot asphalt
And realize it will never be this way again and it won’t
The lines in his face a perfect nautical map of the future.
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 12:31 AM UTC
I’m sick.
I have a fever and flu-like symptoms.
I am alone, and have been for hours,
lying on my bed
with a lavender candle pulsating
to the sound of classical music,
dancing on the darkness of my
ceiling.
I am not aroused
but, playfully,
I slide my palm
over the underside
of my hairy
behind
and begin
to gently stimulate
each hair
with near-static
force.
I occasionally push
my fingertips
into the crevice—
my crevice—
my end.
How good this feels
to be sick
and allow oneself to
feel
the emptiness too
dark
and bold
and powerful
to be contained within us.
The comforting,
soft touch
we can give ourselves
is like a loved one
holding our hand;
it almost tickles, and this sensation
although distinct
reminds me
of the pretend animals
my grandma would parade
across my back.
Beyond our view
the guillotine,
existence,
slowly begins to descend
as we lie,
holding hands with ourself
on top of the covers,
sweat pants around the ankles,
grabbing our own ***
as the steady rain
trickles from the roof
of tenement housing
and beats
on the aluminum gutter
for hours
until it’s over.
The night has fallen
like a punishment
for finding no one
and it occludes my sight;
I shiver, and cannot **********
Existence is too dark
to allow dancing candlelight
or baroque masters
to tickle its space.
It is filled with falling heads
and clutching grasps.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 12:48 AM UTC
I can't tell if I'm high;
Or the wires in my brain has detached the ability to feel my physical body.
& a memory appears in my head;
That night at 3am;
It was raining and we were chain smoking in your car in a grocery store parking lot.
Foxing came on the stereo.
That's when you turned to me
& said, 'This is what I mean.'
I exhaled smoke and watched it slip out the cracked window.
Your eyes were looking down,
& I just said, "I don't know'
We sat in silence;
But I could sense your thoughts.
Inside of me I felt;
Vacant.
Physically I felt;
Tipsy from the beers I drank at our friends house.
I think of that day now
& wonder if you were hurt.
Could it have felt like;
knocking your knee against the corner of a table?
Sometimes, I feel sorry that you've met me.
Can we go back to listening to Midwestern emo bands, laying on the floor in a room with nothing but a bed and a record player.
Before emotions and opinions formed;
Before you told me you hated me;
Before we became friends again and you sometimes would buy me a soda.
When there were no intentions;
just company.
Dec 5, 2017
Dec 5, 2017 at 10:51 AM UTC
Opie Okies,
pursed lips,
Midwestern turn,
of phrase,
Grubby,
makeshift enterprise,
Whose building,
has ol' ***** wisemen,
sittin' on the porch,
chewing the fat,
of the fish caught,
cheaply from the dock,
Their faces branded,
a top the flickering neon billboard,
A majestic pile of gleaming ****
A ****** statement,
under breath,
That is America today
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 4:54 PM UTC
Do you think that you’ll remember
washing your least crusty mug
in the cracked bathroom sink at four am,
blinking afterimages of Wiki articles
and Midwestern poetry out of your eyes?
(Always the Midwestern aesthetic–
what is it about starkness that drives people?)
You’ve spent too many mornings
watching dawn from the wrong side, pacing
up and down beneath the streetlights
as they go out one by one.
The earth keeps turning but
your thoughts scattered last night
and they never came home.
The percussion is
(you heart is)
pounding,
crash ratatatat thump,
ratatatat crash, time
slipping between your fingers
in fits and starts to the beat
fluttering in your chest;
no repeats or hesitations.
The topic is–
Magpie, bird brain,
you line your nest with tinfoil
to keep the world at bay.
You’d say “I want to believe”,
but instead you just play the song again,
hoping that maybe this time—
Did it take this long to realize
you’ve answered your own question?
You have to run
when there’s nowhere to stay.
Maybe you should take a vacation
to the desert yourself,
get some dust under your nails
so you’ll stop chewing them off.
Quit glancing at the clock, sweetheart;
you’re on a timer here.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 7:25 PM UTC
Caught out in a deadly blizzard,
We thought the end was near.
Experiencing zero percent visibility
And insurmountable fear,
We pictured our helpless, frozen bodies--
Icicles à la mode--
When rescue vehicles finally found us
Next to a country road.
Having lost all sense of direction--
In total disorientation--
We considered all of our options
With mounting trepidation.
Suddenly two lights appeared
In our rear-view mirror.
What a sigh of relief we breathed
As a truck got nearer!
Try to stay calm. Do not panic.
Land sakes alive!
There she was to save the day:
Granny in her four-wheel drive.
Hank and June were expecting a child
During a storm one spring.
To make matters worse, Hank had been injured--
His arm was in a sling.
June said, "Oh, oh. Baby's comin',"
And Hank started to panic.
"The roads are flooded and the bridges are down!"
Cried the desperate mechanic.
"Besides, I couldn't drive the stick
In my current condition
Even if the roads were good.
What's that? An apparition?"
Through the rain-streaked window Hank
Could see some flashing lights.
Granny was there in her trusty truck,
Repeatedly flashing her brights.
Try to stay calm. Do not panic.
Land sakes alive!
There she was to save the day:
Granny in her four-wheel drive.
There's a legend on the prairie.
You hear it far and wide.
You can believe the story or not.
Whatever. You decide.
As a monster storm approached
A small Midwestern town,
Swirling clouds indicated
A tornado had touched down.
Granny jumped into her truck
Without a shred of concern,
And driving toward the twister past
The point of no return,
She raced into the monster dead on--
Talk about courage and pluck!--
And knocked the twister to smithereens
With hardly a scratch on her truck!
Try to stay calm. Do not panic.
Land sakes alive!
There she was to save the day:
Granny in her four-wheel drive.
Whenever you find yourself es in a bind
And wonder how you'll survive,
Think about Granny coming to the rescue
In her four-wheel drive.
- by Bob B
Oct 29, 2016
Oct 29, 2016 at 8:59 AM UTC
A deer crossing sign-
Barren trees-
Long dead grass in the ditch.
Tapping of my fingers on the wheel-
Off tempo finger tips.
Imagining a home cooked meal-
My stomach turns and twists.
Lights in the distance-
Rest area, next exit.
Red road-
A deer is spread like my hands across the steering wheel.
Blue skies-
black iced roads-
White hills-
Midwestern winter robes.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 5:20 PM UTC
Maybe you work for one and he's finally retiring ten or twelve years after he should have
And you give him a card with boats or mountains or geese on it,
And you tell him thank you for being patient and for hiring you,
And he just nods and reminds you to submit your time sheet so you get paid for the month,
And you see the card propped up on his desk in his office when you leave.
Maybe your older brother is one and he found a lighter in your bathroom
And he tosses it onto your lap while you're reading and just stares at you,
And his jaw is a little off centered because he's trying not to grind his teeth,
And he says, "I don't want to see this **** again,"
And you know he smokes sometimes but you nod and give it back to him, hands shaking.
Maybe your dad is one and it's your senior prom,
And you're wearing a dress he paid for posing on the stairs so your mom can take pictures,
And your sisters are talking about your hair and your flowers,
And your mom says you look beautiful and looks at your dad,
And he's standing in the doorway with his arms crossed,
And he takes his hat off and puts it back on and blinks a lot and nods,
And his eyes are a little red,
And so are yours.
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 3:07 PM UTC