When your house is unlivable,
And home corrupt
You feed yourself enough information to
Sit, talk and smile like the rest.
A child grows up an empty shell
An oversaturated sponge
Every line he writes later in his forties
Sleeping with his lonely wife
Is an act of undoing.
He smells of his father one day and learns not to hate it
Frowns when the TV is too loud, like his mother did
Like she does
Perhaps. The sound doesn't reach him across states,
And he sleeps with his lonely wife again
In another unlivable house
And another day in the office passes:
He flirts with his colleagues and despises them somewhat
Munching on politics and the crisis of the day
He sits, talks and smiles
Like the rest.