"willies" poems - Hello Poetry

2002: today i kicked the door to history off it's hinges my jealous frame: still too proud to say a word it seems my folks forgot to pencil in growth marks cause they thought their boy would never grow out of small breath ******* dead, years now buried and i bare his name too many syllables for my father to go back fish & play football to stand in the yard and play catch 1994: my mom, the bombshell in retrospect broke her back in her sleep a thousand times since the stairwell in 87' she still sits for spills post nuclear about settling now from the couch she's a weather report spouting nonsense that makes my father grow grey, crack remotes & slam doors to dark rooms abandoning ship for "cheers" & "scienfeld" while my mother sometimes forgets and sets his place at the table and my appetite is abducted by family photos my mother says things like "go see your brother today" -- Johnny's long gone don't you remember? we buried him the day your smile died 2014: you are inches from me ********* a stray hair caught in the fabric of your coat the last remnants of a dog we laid to rest last week and here we are in the hospital again people don't shake like dogs finality is found in the eyes of humans passing archways into shallow rooms where plague and prayer are the only songs sung round the stagnant clocks it makes me wonder if the clipboards cry over being the last thing someone ever writes on take a number, have a seat stay a while i am back, 7 years old & there are different doors now they buried the ones you kicked in that night in '92 when my lungs were filled with holy water you never stopped smoking i never grew out of asthma

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Mar 26, 2014

Mar 26, 2014 at 12:39 PM UTC

TomLeveille

it's the little wars that **** us

2002: today i kicked the door to history off it's hinges my jealous frame: still too proud to say a word it seems my folks forgot to pencil in growth marks cause they thought their boy would never grow out of small breath ******* dead, years now buried and i bare his name too many syllables for my father to go back fish & play football to stand in the yard and play catch 1994: my mom, the bombshell in retrospect broke her back in her sleep a thousand times since the stairwell in 87' she still sits for spills post nuclear about settling now from the couch she's a weather report spouting nonsense that makes my father grow grey, crack remotes & slam doors to dark rooms abandoning ship for "cheers" & "scienfeld" while my mother sometimes forgets and sets his place at the table and my appetite is abducted by family photos my mother says things like "go see your brother today" -- Johnny's long gone don't you remember? we buried him the day your smile died 2014: you are inches from me ********* a stray hair caught in the fabric of your coat the last remnants of a dog we laid to rest last week and here we are in the hospital again people don't shake like dogs finality is found in the eyes of humans passing archways into shallow rooms where plague and prayer are the only songs sung round the stagnant clocks it makes me wonder if the clipboards cry over being the last thing someone ever writes on take a number, have a seat stay a while i am back, 7 years old & there are different doors now they buried the ones you kicked in that night in '92 when my lungs were filled with holy water you never stopped smoking i never grew out of asthma