1.
Cultured people show me cultured things
and I am not trying to stop them.
It’s tough to remember what it was like.
I can’t help but feel like an imposter
and that’s my problem to get over,
but it’d be nice to have help from my father
though he hasn’t gotten much further
and maybe overreaching a bit
he regressed to mean
selling cocaine and shooting heroin,
staying long enough that I’d miss him.
He likes to remind me he did it for me,
to keep me from becoming an addict.
2.
He kept me from becoming an addict
my father became nothing more.
He worries
I am capable of walking away from a meal
with no intention of returning and feel
nothing for the people I won’t come back for.
When he was angry with me he would tell me
my mother had wanted an abortion,
and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have been
so I should be careful with all that blame.
I don’t remember being on the phone
asking him to come home, asking him
why he didn’t love me, but I believe
it happened, often.
3.
It happened often
he’d take us to his friend’s
while he shot heroin
we’d play videogames
or he’d keep us in a room
with no windows and a snake tank
a heat lamp for a nightlight
it’s absurd remembering
him placing
the pinkies
into the tank as we watched
the slow crawl of a baby mouse
he explained to me how it worked
he was a great teacher
4.
He might’ve been a great teacher.
Instead of a lesson, I’ve learned
lopsidedly the stakes
and holding him up
to who he could have been
I realize who he is.
Left to distract and destruct,
a wallowing song
the discovery of what’s missing goes on.
I’m a mimic in most conversations.
I have spent enough time being poor.
5.
Spend enough time being poor
and you’ll always feel poor
My grandfather tells me he found
coca-cola in our baby bottles
the basement apartment ruined
with moisture and camel crickets
and he was afraid for us
even though we were happy
so he talked to my mother
and she left to live with her mother
and my helpless younger brother
his teeth falling out from bottle-rot
he didn’t smile for a few years after
and even today never in photos
6.
Today my brother doesn’t smile
but other than that we look alike.
Easily enough I blended in wherever
we moved with etiquette and humor.
Anthony with his declining demeanor
wanted all the same things as me
but learned to ask for them differently.
My father taught us to be rivals
competing in everything we developed
the tools to strike at each other
and traumatized from living
as long as we did with him but my mother
worked to provide for us.
We had everything we’d need.
7.
We had everything we’d need
and only because of our mother
who often worked two jobs
and stayed awake with my insomnia.
I slept on a couch for a few years, then a mattress
on the floor until I was old enough for a futon.
I haven’t changed much, but masquerading
as I do at parties and events; the people
I’m with know no differently, and playing
my part too well they encourage me
to participate, and when I perform well
the cultured people show me cultured things.
Cultured people show me cultured things
and I am not trying to stop them.
It’s tough to remember what it was like.
I can’t help but feel like an imposter
and that’s my problem to get over,
but it’d be nice to have help from my father
though he hasn’t gotten much further
and maybe overreaching a bit
he regressed to mean
selling cocaine and shooting heroin,
staying long enough that I’d miss him.
He likes to remind me he did it for me,
to keep me from becoming an addict.
2.
He kept me from becoming an addict
my father became nothing more.
He worries
I am capable of walking away from a meal
with no intention of returning and feel
nothing for the people I won’t come back for.
When he was angry with me he would tell me
my mother had wanted an abortion,
and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have been
so I should be careful with all that blame.
I don’t remember being on the phone
asking him to come home, asking him
why he didn’t love me, but I believe
it happened, often.
3.
It happened often
he’d take us to his friend’s
while he shot heroin
we’d play videogames
or he’d keep us in a room
with no windows and a snake tank
a heat lamp for a nightlight
it’s absurd remembering
him placing
the pinkies
into the tank as we watched
the slow crawl of a baby mouse
he explained to me how it worked
he was a great teacher
4.
He might’ve been a great teacher.
Instead of a lesson, I’ve learned
lopsidedly the stakes
and holding him up
to who he could have been
I realize who he is.
Left to distract and destruct,
a wallowing song
the discovery of what’s missing goes on.
I’m a mimic in most conversations.
I have spent enough time being poor.
5.
Spend enough time being poor
and you’ll always feel poor
My grandfather tells me he found
coca-cola in our baby bottles
the basement apartment ruined
with moisture and camel crickets
and he was afraid for us
even though we were happy
so he talked to my mother
and she left to live with her mother
and my helpless younger brother
his teeth falling out from bottle-rot
he didn’t smile for a few years after
and even today never in photos
6.
Today my brother doesn’t smile
but other than that we look alike.
Easily enough I blended in wherever
we moved with etiquette and humor.
Anthony with his declining demeanor
wanted all the same things as me
but learned to ask for them differently.
My father taught us to be rivals
competing in everything we developed
the tools to strike at each other
and traumatized from living
as long as we did with him but my mother
worked to provide for us.
We had everything we’d need.
7.
We had everything we’d need
and only because of our mother
who often worked two jobs
and stayed awake with my insomnia.
I slept on a couch for a few years, then a mattress
on the floor until I was old enough for a futon.
I haven’t changed much, but masquerading
as I do at parties and events; the people
I’m with know no differently, and playing
my part too well they encourage me
to participate, and when I perform well
the cultured people show me cultured things.