Lies My Parents Fed Me

I feel sick with the lies my mother told me,
And dead from the stories my father slurred to me.
I am making imaginary countries out of cotton candy and watermelon dreams,
seeping sugar-sweet blood and ruddy creams.

Nobody knows what I felt that night
I lied awake trying to lose my sight.
The things in the night swallowed me up when I fell asleep
Left teeth marks and scratch marks and gaps a foot deep.

Then in the morning I realized it was just a dream.
I woke to the sunlight and the same dead lies my parents fed me.
Consumed through an IV tube
No flavor
No color
Just cold and grey.
Sustaining my nightmares, nurturing my dismay.


I felt like starving my heart out
Or staving off unconceived notions with unloving kisses
I would do anything for a heart that is full and heavy
a day when I can breath softly, not heavy.