"John."

We call it talking shop.
My parents both have their PhDs,
and I?
Well,
I work fast food.
So while I explain that the milkshake machine
is broken
for the fourth fuckin’ day in a row
and I’ve been called in to cover
three six hour shifts
this week, already,
my mom details her latest case.

See, they’re psychologists,
doctors with less respect
lifesavers of the sanity
we all pretend
isn’t important
some say therapy is for
the weak.
But listen to the story
I’m about to tell you:

they’ve been doing this
for just over two decades now
and I’ve never heard of abuse
this bad,
she says.

Confidentiality laws file-cabinet his name away from us,
so I’ll title this story John.
His namesake, John, called himself
the disciple Jesus loved the most.
If God is merciful, then,
why wasn’t he the first to die?
Instead, made spectator to the cross-hung
nailed-wrist blood-bath drowning
of every person he had ever loved,
and I wonder if dying didn’t sometimes
sound a lot more like hope
than every step
he had to take after that
but he kept walking,
believer in somedays and better things.
Just like

the John in my mother’s office
isn't angry
no matter how many

concentration camp families
incest slave trades
sensory deprivation bedtime stories
foster care put him through
his family sold him to

and I know life is warfare
no matter what your name happens to be
but John’s had steel-toed boots
kicked into his skull
since he was three years old

my little’s brother’s best friend
has him manipulated on a leash like a dog
and I’m sorry for that.
I’m sorry your ex-boyfriend’s an asshole
I’m sorry you don’t have
money for college
I’m sorry for all the things I’ve left behind
and this poem makes me a hypocrite
for the things I complained of
in every poem before this, so

I’ll be the first
but take a hard look
at all the things you’ve lived through
and how they’ve made you who you are
then take a harder look
at all the things you haven’t lived through
and we think we’ve done things
to deserve brighter skies than these?

But the John in my mother’s office
isn’t angry
so what kind of soldiers are we?

And are we waging war against things
that should not have made us so weak?