unsalvageable he said
bond for a lifetime
institutionalization
a primary destination
it’s the best
we can hope
he told me
they simply aren’t
fit for human company
unable to link
they sadly are
subhuman
his diagnosis

descriptors made me
think of feral dogs
turned lose on my
city streets contrary
to what my eyes believed
living breathing
fullhearted human
with eyes as wide
as porch lights
on fall nights

holding out hands
full of sand asking
me to play how
could he connect this

person with an
image so fowl
never having
touched him or
listened to him
explain away
little timmy’s
shenanigans
dreaming of oddly
fair parents

unsalvageable
an illusion meant
to chain a child to
a narrative written
for television

on this, my last offering for #OctPoWriMo 2017 i’d planned to write a happy poem. a poem that took me back to my childhood. on nights like to tonight when kids go out dressed as goblins, and wolves, and all sorts of things that go bump in the night. i had a great little ditty mapped out in my mind too. it was going to be cute and wholesome…then someone mentioned the new ‘opiod’ epidemic and it’s comparison to the ‘crack’ epidemic that plagued cities for nearly a generation. and all the cuteness drained right out of me. i was instantly transported to the time when i was green and innocent and full of vigor and passion about every child having a chance and providing a chance for every child. not much has changed for me on that note since then other than the names of the demons and other things that go bump in the night that i fight.