it'll always be like this,
won't it?
I'll move out of this house
and leave this town
I'll be old enough to drink
I'll be a hundred and two
I can get as old as I can
I can move as far as I want
But nothing that I do and
nothing that they do
will ever change this house
or what they've done

My mother was Hera,
her father swallowed her whole
left her dripping and bile stained
and scarred in her bones
My father was Zeus,
her shining savior,
but I was Hephaestus,
flung off Olympus,
breaking both of my legs and
raising the question
was I born unlovable,
or raised without love?

The sky burned my eyes
from the force of my fall
left me blinded and
ugly and small
tied down from the start
lame and deformed
no childhood friends
or heroes I adored

Raised by fire and smoke

I simply became it

This house is on fire

And I can't contain it

Someday I'll be better

kitchen windows and warm tea

houseplants and radishes

and a working TV

but this house will still be here

in two thousand and

twelve, rotten feces

and screaming, and

a five year old's pen