Drama Under The Circus Tent...Excerpt #2

Dosage

Origins Part II: Mutations…
Was Abby-normal becoming a young freak?
Worried she would turn into a hairy beast
Perhaps, she'd one day grow an orange beak.

Would her paranoia cause her to leak?
Become that person she loved the least.
Was Abby-normal becoming a young freak?

She scavenged for a cure, a little sneak.
As young fur spread, a surprising feast.
Perhaps, one day she'd grow an orange beak.

And fly away to a sunny Martinique.
To forget her dad's slow lecture on yeast
Was Abby-normal becoming a young freak?

Or ascending barefoot the highest peaks,
The air so thin it seemed as if she'd cease.
Perhaps one day she'd grow an orange beak.

She sensed she was much more than merely geek
In her future dreams, there wasn't any peace.
Was Abby-normal becoming a young freak?
Perhaps, one day she'd grow an orange beak.

Coping

When the pharmacist lost his only wife
He thought of eating salads of colored drugs
Because his daughter knew where he hid his knife
Why had his mind become tiny like a bug?
Not a physicist or mathematician, wizard
Maybe his affair was with a magic rug.
And wished he stuck out tongues like a lizard
Or was fried pulling out his sockets plug

Abby-normal spread out her massive arms
To hug her weary father's chemical disgrace
Only the great cement mixer spoon calmed
A face stomped upon by apoplexy
Would there be another love that felt like lace?
He cut toes with scissors and healed with balm.

As if it never happened…

The next day she would be forced to return to school
And avoid the prying eyes of her judging peers
She'd have to quickly learn how to play the fool.

She was too old to hide behind the monkey bars
Could she leap inside her favorite ancient stories
Like the melancholy clown stuck in tiny cars

Her life seemed like one a long word problem
Was she chosen to peel away their veneer?
Solving if she could only tear apart the stem.

In history, she took out her composition book
America's story would say what she could not
Her father was not an adulterous crook.

He'd love her even if she was a wild thing
Without the aid of camouflage's secret shroud
Would nets catch her if she flew off
The swing?

The Correct Dosage?

It seemed her dad was heretical
When it came to swallowing chemicals.
When his eyes began to glaze over
It was best to just roll him over
And make sure he drank some water
Before his mind went to slaughter.

She tried to be a helpful daughter
Before adolescence had caught her
Yet here she was forced to be both
Mother and child as if they both
Had been blown from their mild life
Not realizing what caused their strife.

She squeezed black rags over his head
And pulled him from now soaked beds
Waking him with smelling salts power
And she then dragged him to showers.
What could she conjure to provide his cure?
She'd use a fishing rod and a lure,

To catch what they needed to find with hoe
Maybe, sell snake oil, put on a show
To make them forget their troubles
Until they stopped seeing doubles
What was on her little chin, some stubble?
She did not even want to know…

Micah Zevin 2007...