It’s for your own good
my father belted.
My mother did the same but
at the dinner table with peas.
Mr. Drury in Grade 7 had me
write lines of PPPPPPPs
“It’s for your own good”, he opined.
Cigarettes are now 10 bucks a pack
and casinos $1,000 plane rides away.
“It’s for your own good”, they say.
Seat belts, sanitoriums and saints
always a safe, sane step away.
My wife, my ever, always wife
books me monthly to see a doctor
as much a dunce as a doc can be.
All he offers are pills and pleasantries.
Both saying, “It’s good for you!”
Wars, weddings, sprayed green lawns
papal proclamations and government edicts ….
It’s all for your own good
they declare when asked.
I am, my life now nearly done
I have yet to truly taste what
we call – free.
I followed footsteps and danced
for my own good, like I was told.
Thinking back I now know how
I came to be who I am
this man, here and now
finally at home in the world
on edge, now so aware
of what really is good for me,
my flusher broke.
It’s like one day you wake up
And realize there ain’t no jello tree
and the gingerbread man has
run out of your dreams or
you find out the dictionary
was written by a dyslexic pedophile
and you head out the door to
write your own.
Antigua, Guatemala
October, 2014
