Gown

I went back to the place where they call me destroyer
It’s a pretty town but I wouldn’t want to stay
When I get out of there I always seem to feel lighter
Why that is I really couldn’t say

Too many times I wanted to jump in front
Of Confederate flag-waving pickup trucks
And all I do on my day off is talk myself to sleep
Kept up by the neighbor’s fights and noisy fucking dreams

I buy my brother Happy Meals with money I have found
On grubby supermarket floors or in the folds of your best gown
You keep inside your closet and dress up late at night
Look at yourself sideways to emphasize your height

We stop at a beach just to stand in the surf
I examine your bones through the holes in your shirt
The sand beneath my toes feels right cos I was born in it
A stupid, bloody animal and ready for my fits

I keep a pack of gum around for whenever we are out
Can’t stand all that fake mint myself, but I love to watch your mouth
Your eyes when you are thinking turn inside themselves
I never feel as sick as when I’m lusting after you

My unborn older brother ate my mother’s insides up
Now I have turned into him, it’s an awful thing to watch
Like any high school wrestling match or any network’s news
With kids dressed up like emperors, beheading all their fools

Every time I sleep I think that this is how I’ll go
In the same sunken mattress and still very much alone
And all this background ambiance of construction, early morning
The sky looked goddam grey today with all those storm clouds forming

These days I know every face that I see
From the gum-stained streets, from my window seat
I see the barber, and the cop, and the drunk, and the wife
At the pharmacy, looking to take her life

And someone at the corner store will sell me cigarettes
And some girl will be beautiful with bug bites on her neck
But I will say, “I’m leaving here, though I don’t know the roads.”
And they will say, “The important thing is knowing you must go.”

I used to hear Sister sing herself to sleep
Songs about changing the colors of leaves
But now she looks older and tired with life
And some stranger’s gone and made her his wife

And they fight in the home that I grew up in
Now I don’t really know where I live
The next time I lay down, that’s where I should stay
With just my body and my mind I’ll surely go insane

When the neighbors burned their house down
We watched that spectacle
Nobody was hurt much but the dog bowed like a ghost

When their daughter drank her poison
And threw herself into the gorge
We wore our best black clothing, and smoked outside the church