Terrible Two
Poem on parenting
The moon was large
and clouds were moving fast.
You came out all wrong.
Wrong size, wrong speed,
too loud, not loud enough.
Are you sure you are mine?
Name one thing we have in common.
You are slow to potty train.
I sit you down on the pot,
but you push it around the house
like it’s a shopping trolley.
You probably think, what’s
the rush, you have your whole
life to shit properly and wipe
your own ass. You want to
see how long this little privilege
of being a helpless dependent
will last. Is that it?
You don’t exactly look stupid.
And you definitely don’t look innocent.
You look just like your father,
who, let’s face it, has issues.
You’re a little con artist.
I can tell by the way you
cry for more gelato with
the urgency of needing a
diaper change. Not the
vanilla, not the hazelnut —
it’s the chocolate you bawl
the loudest about…
