14 Apr 2023 2 min read Poetry

The Poetry of Parenting

Your biological imperative will be your undoing

Title: Perverse incentives

Reprimanding your children,
for their sloth,
and avarice,
and ingratitude,

while shaving
slices of Hershey’s kisses
onto their pancakes,
teaches the wrong
lesson.

Title: Synthesis

If a wytch,
or a wizard,
or a warlock,
extracted the essence of your psychosis,
and molded it
into a demon,
that demon would be
your offspring.

Title: Betrayals

You can go to the pool,
if you clean your room.

The child swims,
the room remains
messy.

You can have this book,
if you behave in Costco.

The child kicks,
and screams,
and punches,
and pushes,
and whines,
and flails,
and humiliates,
and debases,
until it’s quietly devouring
words and pizza.

You can watch a nature show,
if you use the potty.

The child soils itself,
and your bed,
while a soul-searing
episode
of PJ Masks
singes your synapses.

You can have a bath bomb,
if you floss and brush your teeth.

The child resists,
clawing and scratching
and drawing blood,
its mouth slammed shut,
its eyes welled with tears,
its hair drenched
with magenta-tinged water,
its heart
teeming
with macabre satisfaction.

You can read comics,
if you go to bed
by yourself.

The child
chitters on
about “Wool-vareen”
and
“Simbee-aughts”
as you fall
fast asleep,
before Succession,
beneath a dinosaur blankie,
clutching an oversized, overstuffed panda
you’ve nicknamed
“Dad.”

Another wasted evening,
another lost opportunity
to feel
alive.