Where I'm From

I am from forgotten songs,

From distorted guitars and double bass.

I am from late night TV

(Loud, blaring

children shouldn’t be watching).

I am from the woods, the skate park

years spent in basements

to avoid those who love me.

I am from vampires and dragons,

from CDs and Neversoft.

I’m from the absentees

and the overbearing,

from painfully controlling to concerningly unaware.

I’m from passive christianity,

with subtle infidelities

and projected anxieties all of which

I seem to have inherited,

may have just been ingrained.

I’m from a perfect masquerade,

streets and houses that hide miseries and imperfections

(a haunting past, not allowed to be seen).

From crime TV and horror movies

I want to play a game

Cataclysmic an opposite of early morning afterschool cartoons.

A bookshelf stained and cluttered

filled with fantasies,

escapist realities

To distract me from tragedies.

I am from the facade of suburbia —

born with misfortune in my veins and shaped in a malignant world -

broken into dust and now finally shaping up.