It is easy to be cruel

It is easy to be cruel

Harder to live with after the fact

There are some people

Who don’t seem to mind

As long as there’s whisky

In a jar

An optic behind the bar

A glass in the hand

All this education for a happy hour

What does it matter

When the engine still purrs

Awakes with a roar

Every time the key is turned

The pedal pressed down

So hard it pushes him back

Into the seat

Like a fighter pilot

He curls his lip just like Elvis

Imagines the curve

Of the hips on the girls in Acapulco

‘How is it the geeky guy

In the corner drives a Porsche?

When he couldn’t ride a bike

Into school’

Nobody is as cruel

As old father time

Who never looks back

To rearrange the mess

He has left in his wake

All the old jokes molder

In the corner

Of a trailer waiting to go out

With the trash

Nobody would guess

Where he keeps his stash

One time he forgot

Tore the place apart

Before he found it

Inside a hollowed out copy of the bible

‘Fitting’ he thought

‘So full of shit’

Enough to pull his chain

Every time he thinks about his mother

Strung out on religion and dope

Quoting the scripture

Word for word with every stroke

Of the switch she used,

To chastise him

For not being his kid brother

‘Whatever happened to him?

Disappeared one night

After Ma brought home a friend

Never saw him again

Either of them’

Often caught his ma, sitting down

By the lake

With a knife in her hand

Blood on her arms

Saved her, mostly

Until one day he didn’t

‘Well some things just make us stronger’

As the saying goes

‘And the longer this shit goes on

The stronger I will be.’

At least that’s what the voices are saying

And they keep getting louder.