The Painted Desert

Sat atop the dirt path, there lay a band

Of golden complexion, guarding my grand

Driveway with pairs of light on its high peak

Set the stage where my parents dare to speak,

And yell, and scream, and slash with clawing

The gold band upon his neck; withdrawing

On top of my drive, where I wait for the bus,

The cross in dirt is what became of us.

For now I find two bodies in a pool;

An ocean between us, I wait for school;

And I analyze what sick clues remain

Upon that split parallel mountain chain,

Each shore that once fit like puzzle pieces,

Each animal on their backs of same species,

Their skeletons outlay in desert dust,

Now uncovered by my convergent gust,

In the sweeping kisses of a sandstorm;

Found their divided bones were of same form,

And these clues point me in one direction;

That these landmarks once had a connection.

Looking upon my mom and dad, now apart,

I can see the shores where they shared a heart,

And that mass of water, that ocean wide,

Between lands, how split up I feel inside,

That each of their scratches must sail the sea

On a messenger boat that travels me,

That car anchored waiting for my sister and I;

I leave my mother without a kiss goodbye,

So she comes up to my dad’s car on the drive,

Where I chose my father with whom to survive,

But we depart our united map afloat;

A continent, missing necklace on throat.

Yet the family portrait, itself, faintly hung

Upon the deceitful grace of each song sung

At the dinner table; behind the glass,

Frames, edits, and filters, did we pass

For a true family spread upon the map;

One painted over the prevailing gap

That simulated backdrops of smiles

Contributed their shrill mechanical yells;

But in the picture, that echo of us,

Seemed as though the cross was not in the dust,

Or islands we are, beating in the distance

Over each ocean bank of false pigment

Of the continental portraits we paint…

Is fake.