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thrown under the bus
nowadays all she does is whine about her bodily pains,
but when you were left alone,
she stayed drunk, prowling the bars
days on end,
oblivious to the emotional wreckage left
on your chest, like a hot iron
melted through the tender heart of a 10 year old,
the open wound to the
skin,
cauterized shut
too soon,
without even leaving any open flesh
for the pain to be released,
seared closed with the shame, pain, and false pride of generations,
sealed in for years like a safety box of magnets,
pulling you towards anything and everything self-destructive
in a desperate search for some morsel of hope,
that the next christmas dinner might be more than
knocking on the doors of neighbors, being lucky enough to be
asked in to share a holiday meal,
and an attempt to be noticed for something other than the burden
you were to her deep and fervent longing for
the escape, into smoke filled rooms,
that reeked with the heavy, putrid smell of week-old frying grease,
cigarettes, and hairspray, that became one of your main
reasons for going to live with your dad--
other than the day she up and left for california,
a 50 dollar bill to substitute her mac and cheese, dribbled with
one and a half inches of ashes off a pall mall,
only to be less than reluctantly welcomed by him,
and a stepbrother who most always was
notably more worthy of better dirtbikes, nicer clothes
and a much more frequent pat on the back
for a job well done,
that most often wasn't.
a dollar for him and quarter for you, along with the bottom bunk,
that smelled like pee from all the years he wet the bed,
only ever good enough for sloppy seconds--
and then there was brownie,
poor broken down swayback, with skin infections,
baldspots and degenertive bone disease,
in light of your brother's black stallion stud,
as if the 6 inch scar on the back of your leg wasn't enough
from your father's drunken rage with a 4 inch hunting knife,
and the glass from the window that left it's souvenir the night he threw you
across the room, all before the age of 14.
shit.
i may have shot that horse between the eyes too.
11:37 PM 6/26/2013
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