Blood paints the carpet like an aerosol spray.
Coffee cup projectiles and a mailbox gets displaced.
Momma is still sleeping and daddy's not around.
Nobody even knows you're home.
They think you're on the bus.
You left early enough.

A cluster and a cell
thinning hair and scratchy towels
Wheel of Fortune on TiVo
itching--bloated--the detonation fuse

Thirty-eight years old and a .38 revolver
introductions and pleasantries aside
Take off the shoes so you don't track in the leaves.
Blame is so much easier than the alternative.

My next preschool book

One day you'll find there's no Santa Clause
and you'll wonder where he went
Rudolph is make believe
They'll tell you what Christmas really is.

You see, Mary got married
and she went and had a baby son
but daddy wasn't the daddy
and the child was the chosen one

all babies go to heaven
and all the meanies go to hell
As for all the rest of us,
pray he's grading on a scale.

The easter bunny isn't hopping through the forest,
he's watching tv in the next room
Superman and witches can't fly
with or without a broom

The change beneath your pillow
really came from someone else
That's why the tooth is in the little jar
hidden on the back of mamma's shelf

Blankets won't save you from the boogie man.
Snowmen don't come to life.
Mamas don't live forever
and Daddies don't always do what's right.

So don't listen to that stuff on the playground
they'll tell you everything and all
your eyes will dim and darken
you'll be a bird without a call.
A bird without a call.