literature

Big Eyes

Deviation Actions

glossolalias's avatar
By
Published:
743 Views

Literature Text

I was reared toward codependence
on the jutting hip of a woman
who couldn't speak English,

on the thrush tongue of a man
who couldn't hold his liquor
and remarried to a gringa,

a sympathy puker. Ammonia
paled the hair in my nostrils,
kneeling on the third stair,

plucking the big chunks up
with a napkin. I gagged,
relapsed into the role

which wrote my schemes
of intellectualization: crushing
and cutting thin lines of diseases,

inhaling the belonging
inherent to helping a drunk
up to his bedroom. It wasn't until

I walked through the aisles
of a buzzing corporate womb,
reading the recipes for diet soda

and composite fences, that I
was birthed to an understanding
that empathy isn't weakness

if you can learn to distinguish
right from wrong, heroin from china,
selfishness from self-preservation.
:devintricatelyordinary:
© 2013 - 2024 glossolalias
Comments27
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
leyghan's avatar