How to Plan Your Exit Strategy
The well intentioned will try to stop you.
Once they find your packed up things,
hidden beneath the playground slide,
they will try to keep you safe.
You must hold your tongue even when you bite it.
When you feed yourself, bite
your own hand and don’t apologize.
Mean only a fraction of what you say. Say things
like “I’m only trying to understand,” then don’t.
Be like butter in a microwave. Learn to evaporate
then re-solidify. Believe it’s boredom, not sadness
that makes it hard to exhale. Tell everyone
each park here is a bad memory. Your mother
sitting on a bench, shooting crushed up pills into her arm
while you feed ducks to distract your sister. Each hotel
a place where you’d give away
your body to men with cigarette breath and meth
teeth if it would keep them
from touching her eight-year-old face.
Get your teeth whitened. You’ll need a nice smile
to be liked. Sell all your secret handshakes
for dog treats. Fool the animal
who is always watching and who knows you.
Plan ahead and learn to lie.
It’s easiest if you become a maze
with a center no one can find.
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