Confrontation Series

Father, I am so sorry your body is failing you.

Father, I am living the way you do.

Your nerve: my heart's fortitude

Shoulder muscle: septic organ.

Etc, etc.

To what extent this is of your choosing is clear and
to what extent I let this moat be built
by drunken architects,
sloppy friends,
teachers forging against
us like Napoleon
is dusty crystal.

Will you still be able to hold a handful
of snapping balloons, for
me,
on birthdays?
The moon is a balloon, the moon
is
the balloon.

I am writing home to tell you to pay the water bill, I am writing home to tell you the power's out.
I am writing home to tell you I'm scared because you raised a communist who thinks her heart is common ground.
I am the dregs in a jar
of breakfast marmalade,
diluted, mild and
bitter and sour milk and uneatable lemons.

Papa, did you stop having friends for the same reasons
? (See the beautiful form of that question, marked.)

Once, you became jealous of Bear's bike and stole it and biked away so fast down oak MN St.s and pothole became eye bone on sidewalk, mangled Bear's bike, and he drove by with his mom and peeled you off concrete and now you have a scar and he was a friend of yours still).

Once, friends promised that upon my european return they'd puzzle me back together again and I taking this to mean many more things than what's been implemented as factory policy came back all a dreaming and ready to be mended and pothole became my books, their lusty needs, and I am waiting for some balloons no one gave me for my birthday and now I have a scar and love humanity so much still).