Empty Boxes

I’ve been waiting for God with eyes like my mother

who waited for those checks to come for her two adopted daughters from the city of Philadelphia

She was single

no man to hold her

love her

rub her

touch her body down like the cool of spring so

she checked the box to receive us

to learn things about her self that boxes could never tell

Like how patient she was

the patient waiting for him to bring this piece of paper riddled with signatures that resembled loose veins

that came

twice a month

from the old stuck up Adventist's Conference that barely paid anything

religion was her opiate

he fed her addiction

pimped mailman striped the affliction

she stood in the diction of children

wishing to be checked

I want to believe she didn’t take us for the checks

but

I saw her leg shake every time he got near

She got high by the window

waiting for God to appear

just to get a piece of heaven

You see, her God was that check

and he kept the gas on...check

electric on...check

black combat mats to trap the packs of diseased filled--snap the necks of the pest the best we could

we’ll just have to get buckets of water from next door to bathe for awhile you hear me child ?

I felt her echoes vibrate

through my hollow bones into my parietal lobe

robed with pain

the mane of hooded jackets that protected my dreams

I've seen disappointment in her black eyes

another fiend driven wild by hope in white trucks

He robbed us of parenting coherently

She despairingly shrugged her shoulders as her heart grew ever colder

But he didn't give a fuck

like winter days when the heat was held by two steel walls set to 350 degrees --the degrees of patience grew weak

the dead of frost cost all

that was ever labeled on that receipt

We checked and we waited

we waited for the advent ...

for what seemed like two winters and a half when the draft started showin his ugly ass

paled out like lips and skin and under fingernail tips that ripped with ease

from obsessive nervousness

from all the waiting...

for this fucking man to show his blue sleeve through the mail slot

Holding the belly of this house in his grip as virgin winter set in, all white-faced like Madonna, I was touched by flakes of snow that cut my skin wide open

yet we all know this was not the first time

Oh winter you fuckin whore

I'm a slave to your expressive nature

the way you lay your venom through vacant slits in my willing linen creating checkered print forms

you lure us into your sheets

rock us to sleep

my tear ducts swollen

but overflowing

to a God that often sent rain

weekends and seldom holidays

I wanted to curse the ground that proud postal serving mother fucker walked around on

But he didn't know

How could he have known

that my life was full of empty boxes and our empty house full of empty bellies just waiting for chocolates

melted by anticipation lit by stoves, I kept watch of

and we're all waiting for something to arrive

whether it be checks, bills, or self respect

we're still trapped in superficial bondage

so I'm hoping this knowledge

will seep in into your ears, free your mind and flow out from your eye

lids across the bridge

of your nose and cheek

to connect like checks.

Cuz' I still check

everyday for God

just like my mother.

-Lovve