My Normal Family

A girl wakes up every day with the nightmares of her mother’s screams.

She tells herself she will leave her home as fast as she can.

And she does, on the day that she turn eighteen.

The girl packs up and then looks for a man.

The girl couldn’t get accepted into college,

And so there were few jobs available

The dream of leaving poverty would be demolished

And forever she’d be forced to wait tables.

At a club she sees a face flash a smile,

she returns in like and then they begin to talk

The two become married in a short while,

And so the girl found what she had sought.

The girl, now married, had money,

but not only that, she had a child.

and the future seemed sunny,

but the storm was at its most mild.

“Today Mommy and Daddy fought about me bringing my blanket to school.

Daddy threw me outside, but then I heard them agree.

I heard them high five, and then sent me to the cruel,

cruel place where I can’t even bring my blankee.”

“Today I have the fifth grade science fair.

Mom said not to tell Dad about it.

If Dad knew, we couldn’t be there,

Since I had to skip football practice.

But when I got home, Dad knew where I had gone.

I apologized, but then he began to scream,

‘This is my house and it’s my mon-’

His fist was raised at me, but Mom had got between

It and my face, and so my Dad got even madder.

I was thrown up the stairs and then locked in my room.

As I listened, screams got louder and sobs got sadder.

I wanted to mop up the tears but I have only, a broom.”

“And so I got to Middle School, but had no friends,

Until one day some kids taught me what could make me feel better.

They gave me a drink, one that mends

They said it would get rid of all my troubles and I said ‘sure’”

“My mom always says how she is a klutz,

And tries to say that nothing is wrong,

But I know the burns are from cigarettes,

And the caged bird is afraid to sing her song.

I have a drink and forget about it.

My eyes get heavy and my legs go weak.

Before I fall I make sure i sit,

But then I collapse on the bed and fall asleep.”

“I see her face in my dreams, bruised, burned, bloody,

And I see the sadness in her eyes, the stream of tears coming down.

The ground gets cold, dark, damp and muddy.

I’m shaken awake and I’m being held against the ground.

My dad is holding the bottle shouting words

He breaks it and points it at me

As if I’d see what I hadn’t heard

That his threats aren’t empty.”

“My parents divorced and it’s all my fault.

I skipped school and borrowed some drinks from the liquor store.

I look at my arm and I think of the belt.

I see all the cuts, all the scars, and all the sores

I take a drink and let the world disappear

All my troubles go away

I feel like I’m not even here,

As if it’s no longer day.”

“I just finished high school and now I’m a carpenter.

I have a girlfriend and I very much love her.

But when I get angry, I hit her, I kick her.

It’s almost as if I’ve become my father”

“So I drink, I drink my heart out and come home.

I see my kid and he needs discipline.

i grab my belt and smack his dome,

But his death isn’t a sin”

Its all because of the government

The government needs to keep us away from poverty.

It needs to pass and implement

Bills to enhance our safety.

The government is keeping us poor.

My parents married because of money.

And now I always pass out lying on the floor,

And my wife flinches whenever I say honey.

Maybe if the city recognized the marks on mine and my mother’s skin,

or maybe  if I hadn’t taken that first sip.

Maybe if silence was the loudest din.

But now I must go, I must take a trip.

To a place I’ll never leave,

To a place for those who kill.

But I will never believe

That anything could have saved me from the ill.

The disease is running through my veins,

It has happened in my family for years.

I wish I slowed the reigns,

But it seems I’ve just drunk too many beers.

The Road Less Traveled By

I walk this lonely road of lies.
I follow the twists and turns
I wallow in the filth but then try to rise.

Weary of the climb, I cannot discern
The main path from the tortuous trails.
I look back at the the paths, scars and burns.

I look at all the lies, and to grace I hail,
Hoping for a change, working for a change.
But in my heart I know I will fail.

I come to a bridge, tattered, creaking with single drops of rain
It cannot bear the burden of another
It looks at its mistakes and loses its brain.

I think of my girlfriend, my parents, my brother,
Pelted by raindrops? Nay pelted by hail!
Unable to endure, she gives the flood sweet surrender.

She loved me but knew not that my sails
Took me on the path I am on.
The broken road, the weeping trails.

My tears come as I look upon

The crossroads, fearing tragedy.

My choice to pick a path has come.

I cannot take either of the two paths before me,

The road less traveled by is no better than the one everyone takes.

The lies have left me no other choice, I finally see.

I must turn around, and face the lies that I’ve made.

War

In the desert a bush is aflame.

We try to put it out, but glory prevails.

The Bush speaks out, it says to fight thine enemy,

Kill those that don’t follow the Lord, Our Savior.

The Bush tells us to take up arms against the

Moslem infidels that take us contra arms up.

That burning Bush, lets irony prevail.

The burning Bush sent me to this desert to burn.

Terror ensues, as the two great towers of religion

Collapse, killing thousands in the ash.

One of the towers fell first, but no one’s sure which one.

Buddhists watch in terror as the heathens that are left

In dust, and rubble begin to light the world aflame.

Neither cross nor crescent can survive this war.

I’ve survived two tours and now it’s time for a third.

My country in ruins, I walk around the streets and gaze

Upon what used to be. The two towers are gone.

A small memorial remains in their place.

My God has tested my faith so;

I have seen hell on earth, and I’m not ready to go.

Flawless

The world tells you that nobody’s perfect, and looks down on you when you say that you are good at something.

Be humble it says.

If you do something great don’t get excited.

They say that you can’t talk about how great you are.

Yet, after the world breaks you, beats you a thousand times,

That is the one thing I need.

I would say that I’m flawless because all my flaws are what makes me who I am,

But those flaws are what the world has told me is bad about me.

I’m tired of letting others dictate my thoughts.

I AM PERFECT.

Let me have that.

Everyone deserves one day where they can feel that way, where the world seems to bow at their feet.

I DESERVE THAT.

With all of the shit you have put me through world let me have that.

People call me a genius, and I agree.

I’m a fucking genius.

But I can’t enjoy anything good about me because being proud of yourself is a flaw.

If you think that you are great at something, you are just a conceited jerk.

I’m proud of my grades, but if I tell other people I’m an ignorant jerk.

I work hard.

I never give up, even at the things I’m not so great at.

Yet, there’s this euphoria when I finally do something right,

Those that are perfect at it the first time will never understand.

When hard work pays off and I can think to myself, I did it.

I did something to show the world that I’m good at something, I’m special.

Yet, even in that moment, if I told them how perfect I felt, they would throw me into a chasm,

To show me that jumping high shouldn’t put me on my high horse, because I’ll never jump high enough to get out of this.

But I don’t get high. I stay high above those in my high school that do drugs.

And yes I sound conceited, yes I sound like a jerk.

But if talking about the good things I’ve done makes me sound that way,

I care not about the world that thinks so.

I am perfect.

I AM PERFECT.

I’ve had to fight so hard to feel this way.

I’m on top of a mountain, but I still have to fight the world, miles below.

Because no matter how perfect, how flawless, I feel.

They try to pull me back down.

Back down to that chasm,

Right back into my failures, my flaws.

But I can’t stop fighting.

I think of my accomplishments,

And try to forget my mistakes.

I AM PERFECT.

I AM PERFECT.

I am perfect.

Please let me stay that way.

Kidnapped

My captors have been quite kind to me,

Much more than their predecessors.

The first ones found me on the streets,

Coming in a roaring earthquake, at which I was the epicenter.

Trapped in a cage I then looked for escape.

I tried to squeeze through the bars to no avail.

They returned seeming strangely elate,

And punctured me with a glaring needle.

After some time I observed my surroundings.

Hidden in the room were hundreds of others,

Imprisoned with no real grounding.

They must keep our screams muffled.

They opened our cells to give us food scraps,

When they came to me I refused to be trapped.

My escape was easily foiled, but patient I must be.

There is always a route, and always a way,

To regain one’s liberty.

Nothing can keep me from being free.

They moved me one day, so I cut them with my nails.

This new room was filled with what i can only describe as slave buyers.

If I went with them it would be much harder to fail

In my quest for freedom, so my hopes were raised higher.

“Notice me, buy me, I’m the most valuable asset here.”

I showed my strengths and attracted a single slaver.

My heart beat fast, my moment was near.

“Soon I will escape and I’ll finally be safer.”

The slaver tossed me in a coffin, and drove me to his home.

He began calling me some name in his strange language.

Yet, he fed me well and allowed me to roam

And to the streets I lost my languish.

If I escape they will come for me again,

I won’t be so lucky, and I’ll die in a cage.

Now I’m in a prison, but can leave any time.

I pretend to love my masters, and they leave me alone.

My work is quite easy, I must simply chime

A song, or entertain them with everything I know.

Why should I leave, it’s safer at present.

I can’t leave, it might be worse outside.

My age as I count it is seven,

As the day I was taken, was the day I died.

My identity is young, but my body old.

As I’ve grown frailer my captors have barely grown.

I can no longer overpower them, despite what I’ve told.

My life is wasted simply sitting in their home.

Death. The truest freedom I could ever have.

It ends their happiness. Revenge through loss of love.

Justice

Heavy is the soul of the man with the gavel.

Heavy is the weight of the sins he’s committed.

He would himself to hell just to feel whole.

And justly so for what he’s permitted.

Rocking back and forth in cell,

A man looks to escape from hell.

Innocent he is (in most ways),

but burning he has been for days.

Oh so heavy his shackles are

And so much regret he feels.

Blackened not is his heart.

At the altar he readily kneels.

His sentence was death

For resisting arrest,

From an officer of the law

That eagerly broke his jaw.

But the humility of the other.

To endure so much in duty to his city.

Each day he feels he locked up his brother

Then he goes home, and eats away his pity.

The innocent starves, awaiting the end.

He had so much to live for and so much to defend.

He has to die for fighting back

Against a racist cop that saw he was black.

The judge regrets greatly,

Those sent to death row.

Those men that were white and wealthy,

And the officers in prison that he knows.

The man looks at the rope.

The judge smiles with hope.

He got that guilty dope,

He chuckles a bit as he watches the man choke.