poem for today

it's not that i want to trash you
it's that you're trashy. your family
told me so, you're the first to
collect welfare, even tho you don't,
but that's what they think and who's to fault them?
you haven't worked since the baby was born,
so i guess they just connect the wrong dots
because your man don't have money to give
can't work and you won't .she said once
you love your baby as much as i once loved you
then you won't be selfish anymore.
the baby's six. when will you grow up?
instead we have this game of carrot sticking
which neither one of us likes. you'd rather i just
give you money, i'd rather you treat me
with a little bit of respect. like, you
can't get angry with me for saying
things like "he's not going to support you
you really need to go get money to pay
the electric bill if he spends everything on beer."
don't see how that's trashing you
but you always were sensitive.
just like daddy, whom my family assures me
the gene must come from. i left him
but i can't leave you. so, no contact is what you say
and you use the grand daughter and you use nothing
that you know anything about to try to hurt me
but you hurt yourself so much more. spite is a painful dish.



























********






she waves a sign on the roadside
three children, rent's due
please help or we're homeless.
why don't you do that? one time she even
had the kids in tow. i bet she got a lotta dollars then.

he sits outside the chik fil a throughout lunch
with a sign that says "homeless please help".
he's there everyday. for the last three months.
i don't have a job for him, or a home. but i think by now
he would have enough money to rent a room.
unless his credit's messed up. which it is.


she's over by the side of the road, sitting.
it's summer. about three oclock the sky
is the color of hot pewter. i have some change
in the console so i wave her over. she looks
at the coins in her hand with disgust. spits on my car.


i offer you twenty dollars to do something i'd normally do myself.
you want payment in advance, but when i say get a job
so you don't have to do this anymore, you say
i don't have to take
this abuse.and hang up.
the texts come fast and full of red pus
but i just pop em and let the blood run out.































*(*(*(*(*(*







i haven't been hungry since i was twenty.
that's when i moved in with her dad because
i couldn't pay the rent anymore. i wonder if she
would ever get that chance. cuz she's blown
any more offers from me.
everytime i think of living with that sickness
i'm glad yours has yet to surface on a full time basis.
but i loveyou. i love her. i loved him, and the next one
and the one who wore thongs around the house.
i even love you. every love is the love of my life.
until it isn't. then it's a fistful of hateful wishes
thrown back at me so i can stop. loving.
everyone but her, but then it's hard to disown
someone you birthed.  but i can keep my distance.
i can not know what's going on in your life.
i can do that. watch me wash my own damn car.