i die in my dreams

i cry in the shower sometimes, i die in my dreams. i want to ask my daughter what all of it means, but she's only three. now she's in her teens with skinny jeans and a boyfriend who cries in the shower and has wet dreams. god, let me go and come back clean, dennis lillee's fingers on my seams. i'm a ball in the air and life isn't fair and vivian richards will smack me for six. and out in the backyard of my brain i'll bounce for a while on the trampoline. i'm the king out here but where is my queen. i know, don't tell me again, i saw her face in my bed. mouth wide open like she just won the race to be dead. i stuffed it with jelly beans and poured chocolate sauce on her head. in shock i suppose and they came and took her away and i had to go to work that day. they told me to go back home and be with my girl. 12 years ago and i still cry in the shower sometimes. and die in my dreams.

a poem about kittens

my mother is an animal. a slug. a bug. a stupid cat. she doesn't believe in simple things like truth. like things that happened. she says things like "your father did not molest you. he is not an animal."

my father is an animal. a gorilla. a pig. something fat. he doesn't believe in simple things either. like not molesting little girls. like not molesting me. he says things like "you are a slut. you are a rotten dirty slut."

my mother says "they can put a man on the moon."

my father says "you are a whore. a slutty dirty whore."

my mother says "you don't think they can implant false memories in a girl's brains?"

and i say to my mother "i am telling you."

and i say to my father "you molested me."

i am confronting them. i am telling them. but they do not believe in simple things.

my father plays the bassoon. that's what he does. that's his job.

my mother gets raped by my father. that's her job.

"you were in my room" i say to him.

and to her i say "he is not a man on the moon. he put himself on me."

"you were a slut" my father says.

"he was a man" says my mother.

"he was never a man" i say to my mother.

"you are a rapist" i say to my father. "a gorilla who rapes slugs and bugs and stupid cats. a pig. you are something fat that rapes little girls and you raped me. in my bed you raped me. i didn't want you to rape me but you did. you are a pig and you raped me."

"they have done things to your thoughts" says my mother, "you don't know what is true."

"he did things to my body" i say to my mother.

"you stuffed your fat penis into places inside of me" i say to my father. "you shoved it deep into my anus."

"you were a whore." says my father. "those skimpy slut pants" he says.

"those were my pajamas" i say to my father. "i was eleven years old."

"a child doesn't understand" says my mother. "your father, he fixes things."

"you do not understand" i say to my mother.

"you break things" i say to my father.

"and what about the sheets?" i say to my mother. "the sheets that were soaked in blood."

"girls bleed" says my mother. "and they are embarrassed. they make up stories to hide their shame."

"i am not embarrassed" i tell my mother.

"i am not ashamed" i tell my father.

"i am just telling you" i tell my mother.

"i know what you did" i tell my father.

"you are an animal."