You were the best friendship
Elm Street had to offer.
A brick patio to escape the smoke,
cigarette yellow stained walls.
Brown sticky drips of accumulated
cigar tar catch the dust of Dot.
Who is too old to clean, too old to care
that her grandson is corrupt,
dealing, a deviant and disturbed
enough to sexually abuse.
You know I was used
for the amusement of young boys, right D?
You’re the one
I don’t want to remember, remember?
Well, I’ve painted destruction
and I’ve dealt in denial.
You’ve painted me the villain
in my past of mistakes aimed right at you.
But you. . . Oh, you took my peace,
for years you stole my words,
my grace, my God’s sake,
and someone said to me recently. . .
In an unspoken sort of way. . .
That’s not okay,
not that I stop wishing the best for you,
but that you don’t deserve the best.
You don’t deserve the best!
D, I don’t know if you can recall,
but while you were busy
making me the butt of your sick joke,
I was dying,
trying to cope with a sad sense of self
and the overbearing psychosis
imposed upon me by my family tree.
And I’ll never forget the empty nutshell
you introduced me to.
Yes, he was a joy
and while I was lucky enough
to survive that situation:
You never once questioned our companionship,
or if what we were doing was wrong.
Oh, I don’t know,
maybe you should tell someone
your supposed best friend
was the victim of teenage erotica at the hands
of an empty nutshell who was twice her age.
Then you had the nerve to make me feel
guilt and shame, called me a whore.
My God D,
you are such a bore!
You accused me of theft,
yet you stole so much more!
I do not identify as the victim,
and I’ll admit I had to be a villain
to overcome vulnerability.
Don’t mess with me,
I Have Regrets,
my share in wrongdoing.
But I’ve never stolen someone’s integrity
or their ability to feel humanity.
Those are things you stole from me!
So how could you expect a child to be
anything other than a mess of mistakes
in a miserable world
of sad circumstances?
I don’t know,
I do not know the answer to that question.
I’m simply summarizing the past
so it doesn’t catch up with me.
