What’s there to be loved?
Words, food on the table,
The raging car racing,
Beating the life out of
Life, thriving, nowhere,
Beside you, ignored,
Devastated, heads bashed,
Rubbing against one another,
Your hair in mine, the occasional
Comedy, we’d meet there
But you’d always pull us both
Back into tragedy, not ours,
Not ours?
Sometimes I’d come across that little boy
Who came home with his pants full, he’d
Never go in public, and he’d rather take a beating,
Every day. The boy who got stuffed with violence.
It poured out of him, out of his mouth, his heart,
Into others, into animals, everything that struck
A nerve. Too many. Too intense. I was like that dog.
Full of fear, trying to take a distance, and yet wanting
To be loved by that very leg and hand that struck it.
Grief-stricken, curdled disappointment, stagnancy.
When animals go into hiding it is a sign.
The dog wouldn’t fight. Back. She took it.
I took it for a while. Mentally almost forever.
Not physically, no, I fought you there, you
Weren’t a little boy anymore, you were my father,
You see, and I wouldn’t accept your distribution of
Pain rather than love. The dog and I, we both did
The right thing in order to survive.
Croque-Melpomene 