chew me up,
spit me out,
this seems to be
all that you're about.

pulverize me in your jaw
a crunch, a snap,
expel me on the wall.

watch me drip,
watch me run,
put me on display,
critique me endlessly for fun.

the dark is always scariest
when you cannot find a light,
and love is always perilous
when all you do is fight.

but i'll support you with my everything,
defend you til i fall,
i'll protect you against anything,
and i'll love you through it all.

i'll pick you up when you fall down,
and if it seems that i just can't,
then i will **** up all my pride,
and i will join you on the ground.

i'll hold you when you need it,
and walk away when you just don't.
i'll never leave you all alone,
i promise that i won't.

i'll make you food when you are hungry,
i'll get you water when you thirst.
i'll do anything you tell me,
if i can see you do it first.

these are my promises,
i'm making them to you
i wish there could be more,
but what else can i do?

the most unsettling feeling
is seeing the place
that you once slept in,
cried in,
ate in,
stripped bare of everything that made it yours.
knowing that should you ever return,
it will have a new personality,
a different setup,
eyes that aren't yours glancing over
what will eventually become
just another table in the way
of the DVD player.

the most liberating feeling
is turning from that place,
and realizing that soon you will be
sleeping, eating, crying
in new rooms,
rooms made yours
simply because you call it home.

may you always have a table in the way of something
because home is where you throw your shoes off at the door
and sleep, cry, eat, love, fight.

I bit my nails to the quick today
so that I may feel a raw pain
as I trace my scars;
a pain reminiscent of the days
before they were scars.

left my family
left my job
i'm hungry and the box spring is broken
there's a knot in my back the size of my fist,
but we have love!
except lately it seems that it's not quite enough.
and now here i am,
in my nice shirt and jeans
chain smoking on the porch
waiting for your mom's car to come around the turn
so we can bail you out together.