Homesick Birds

by: Katie Roche

I’m all the unkempt youth thinking themselves mad teeming with hormones
 I’m all the women who look in the mirror with a magazine picture taped to the glass
I was never that girl, the one with the perm, and the bow in her hair
I was more like a squirrel, or a rabbit in winter, with my back to the sun
Just a little one.

I’m all the families staring at paintings in the spiral of death.
I’m all the mothers and fathers of babies who watch their first breath
I was never an uncle to you the way I should have been
And we're third cousins now I was more like a floor that you had to keep swept
just a dirty one… a careful one…

I’m all the dogs who drink water all night but can’t get to the door
’m all the couples who sleep one on the bed and one on the floor
I was never one to listen, my story too ready to make fit with your lot
I was more like a door left ajar to a store to be robbed
from the back parking lot
just an easy one…

I’m all the homesick birds who must make a new nest
I'm all the landlords, old ladies and lawyers who never get a rest
I was never a closed book, my mysteries written…. by aeroplanes in the sky
I was more like a pie left to cool in the window to tempt each passerby
Just a tired one…
oh, a lazy one…

I’m all the ghosts who lived to short of a life to learn how to haunt
I’m all the prayers you said as a kid before you learned how to talk
I was never a list maker, a planner, a dreamer, a writer of wills
I was more like a half eaten jar of some unneeded prescription pills
An unfinished one