Menu Of Childhood Trauma Poem by Kevin Patrick

Let's start the appetizer

An absent father
Who loves the bottle
More then his child

But it's alright
Because father's
Are empty calories
And mean nothing



For the main meal
I'll have the daily bullying
A side order of alienation
from my peers
My pride carved away
And eating by children
Driving the knives
Into waistline of sanity
While the teachers looked on
Starved of indifference

Perhaps for a side order
I'll have attempted suicide
Nothing tastes better
Then a slit wrist
Of adolescent death wish
Make it a medium
To go


For dessert
I don't know.
Maybe never knowing trust
Or seeing monsters
Everywhere I go
I hear the paranoias extra sweet


Maybe
I'll just have the usual
A buttoned up smile
Behind a volcano
Well mannered
With extra ketchup


It's a bit heavy
But such is life.