Growing Pains
Strippin’ my clothes off because it’s too damn hot
I was seventeen when I ate the world
and spit it back out
Run my tongue along the wet lines of my jagged gums
Killing things is heritable in my family
Some people’s genes require
The pulling of teeth
Not me, I was born with this wideness
Carry my wisdom teeth in my mouth like wounds that’ll never heal
Rub lime and salt into ’em to make it stick
Felt them budding in the back of my jaw when I was just a child
Growing pains, they’re growing pains, my mother’d say as I tipped my head back, possessed, at the kitchen table trying to will it away
Shimmery sweat sticks to my skin, I was born into sin—
And I am thinking about dead things and the vacant deer on the side of the highway and the salt of my mouth and the salt of the earth
Father of my father’s father—a murderer—found himself dead—
His son,
wrangling anger and his children
beating the desire to tear into them
My father slaughters
a deer—i’m going too far back let’s skip near the present—a pig
crucifies it like he’s still catholic
hangs everything he kills upside down and does what he knows
Over and over,
killing things since we were just babies
chewing on the world cause it never gave us anything or made us worth remembering
Where does this cycle
stop
I would like to think it ends with me
But, lord, I know that I am born to eat