Kitchen

Breakfast in my house has always been a smaller meal,
It has been crafted from jokes, insults, and humility for many years.
My grandmother says these are the keys to healthiness,
that the ooze of the jokes makes the roughness of insults moist
so syrupy and sweet that even humility seems overly salty.

I enjoy breakfasts by myself most days, the sweet honey of loneliness
makes the sharp edge of truth’s knife cut slicker
but every morning, my mother sends me a dove
and it calls for me in the kitchen
it sings a lullaby so secretive, so forbade
that sometimes i slip down the tresses and into the mouth of a dragon

Breakfast in my house is forever a smaller meal,
it is crafted from ruin, treachery, and epiphanies
my brother tells me to seal my lips, swallow my fork
but every time i throw up, it runs like cinnamon in my neck