STATUS QUO.

A GIRL AND HER PARENTS AND LIFE.

You know they’re at it again,
The rowing, the petty fights,
The money problems or him

Seeing someone else or she
Having it off with one of his
Friends while he’s away, so

You close the door on it and
Light up the cigarette you’ve
Just bummed from your mother’s

Bag, the smoke rising upward,
The way its curls, the spreading
Along the off white ceiling and

You feeling the hit at the back
Of the throat, the inward heave,
The long drag. Joey Suggs wanted

You to show him the tattoo you
Had on your thigh (Mother had
Conceded because of the things

You’d seen and promised not to
The tell Father) just below the
Panty line, but you didn’t and

He bragged he had and his friends
Laughed and fell about with their
Ill humour, but he couldn’t tell them

What it was and so guessed and
Sprouted off a strings of things
Beginning with butterfly and ending

With: I just don’t know. Goon; he
Spoke too soon; you’d have shown
Him at a later date, but he was in too

Much of a hurry and wouldn’t wait.
You close you eyes to the smoke
And rowing voices, there is only the

Tick tock tick tock of the old clock
That Grandma gave and behind your
Closed eyes, you see the dying flowers
In the glass vase on the neglected grave.