Teeth

My gums recede more every day
Roots of teeth in dark decay
I smoked in fear for fifteen years
Changed my ways as thirty neared

But now I brush them and they bleed
Take each caution
Advice heed
But still each day their health decline
Through daily care
Attention fine

I know this is now what I get
For nicotine and cigarettes
But I surely would have died
If I did not as youth Imbibe

Drugs were the only retreat
From route-less childhood defeat
Abuse so constant
Fear so sure

Burning trailer park manure

Violent stupid patriarch
Laughing giant in the dark
Oscillating screams and sighs
Matriarchs do babes despise
Pervert uncle circus show
Methamphetamine and blow
Manipulation
Jealously
Emotional and physically
Constant wars of petty prose
Desperate
Bloody
Broken nose
Heart attacks all every day
Hide and distract
Screw and pray
Anything to make it end
Like a dog I twist and rend
With wild eyes
And desperate turns
I pull away
The iron burns

I tell you this to make a point
About how you love to anoint
The free choices you've come to know
How nice for you
"Places you'll go!"

We all get our inheritance
And I must reiterate since
In that way we are equal
Sure
But you're the fisher
I'm the lure

Success is top your neighbors head
And as you look at the unfed
You sing yourself a pretty song
'Bout how they chose it all along

-

You would not have been stronger
Put in my place I know
So stop looking down your nose
With all your ways to go

Hard as a kid to brush your teeth
When you can't leave your room
Rooted by insistent fear
As outside monsters loom

My ruined teeth are choices made
If you consider rope
A viable alternative
To finding ways to cope.