Childhood Caving In

Thick and disgusting like caterpillar guts
Sticky jam that you spread on teacakes
Snooty teacakes for the wry laughter
The butterfly aborted, industriously

Almost as bad as the dinner table
Flies gathered on mom’s oven mitts
The wobbly leg, a stack of crusty hotel bibles
I don’t give a shit, pass the potatoes

That special someone on the yapper
The telephone, that every day has only
Spit pesticides in your eyes because the caller
Got your name from a list, not a heartache

Cesspool, like the stomach slowly filling
With the fragmented slivers of your favorite
Christmas ornament, that you dropped
After hearing the words, Santa Claus isn’t real