Cabin Fever

Luck of the Draw

9-22-03

You can beat me and call me names.
Profess your love with sin
and shower me with adulation and adoration
from your clenched fists
and silhouetted barbs of distemperment
while watching me bow to the ground,
kissing your feet.
You can tell me your tall, drunken tales
or charm me with your 12th-grade wit,
filling me with prom-night fantasies
and fraternity dreams.
I'll sit down and hide my tears another night,
collapsing into a human can of beer;
blood-stained and reeking of smoke and drink
just to find some better way of cleansing.
Daddy said maybe one day you'd be rich
but what did he know? He was just like you.
He called you "the catch", the "meal ticket",
and only left me alone after I found you.
On his grave we danced;
that night was your worst
after you took his place-
the "drama" you "saved" me from.
Now I look at pictures.
You've got his eyes
and his habits
and I see I didn't have very far to roll
when I fell from the tree.
Black days can only outnumber black eyes
and I watch the calendar like a clock.
Waiting. Ticking...every day...
as it goes by...
blacker...and blacker.
One day I'll dance on your grave,
thinking I'll only have myself to blame
for thinking there was no other way.
"It was the luck of the draw",
daddy always used to say.
Some have it, some don't.
When the reaper comes a-callin'
on the day he draws for you,
maybe then I'll finally understand
the way luck comes around.