Just another girl with daddy issues.

A new slam poem I'm working on getting performance-ready. This is the first draft. It might not even be the same poem by the time I'm done editing it.

Well, I know this is pointless in asking (because the people I know who read my blog never comment [except my mother]) but- thoughts?

This American Life

All hail the Oxycodone King

says the dog in his kennel

gnashing his teeth

at the family around a table,

begging for a scrap.

Dinner time in the new millenium:

cheap spaghetti with marina on top.

Even in our youth,

we eat thinking, what comes next?

After the diploma

After the job

After the wedding

After the five babies

After the failing car business.

Why, an affair then divorce comes next-

Salvation is for tourists.

Childhood? He remembers this.

When the hour hand

passes four times around,

dad pops another.

And thus the cycle of trading begins

Nobody really leaves their children,

they just give them up

for another with doughier eyes

or a hotter mama.

The process of cutting ties

is an abrupt one, no matter how slow

or cruel.

You wake up on a camping trip

to see that your tent is gone.

You're covered in dew and hungry.

All that is left is a square

of dead grass where the tent

used to be. The car is gone.

How will you get home?

Do you even want to go home?

All hail the dissonance

says dad from a crackling phone

that seems to be a thousand miles away.

He is actually next door

with the Jones, but you'll

never see him again,

and that's why you got a dog.

To call someone daddy.