My Olympus
I count eight tubs of freezer burnt ice cream for every
year we have lived in this Gods forsaken house.
Coming back from Mt. Olympus and all I can remember
is being four years old and smelling like
grilled cheese
and diaper rash
and car exhaust.
I am hungry, and my dear mother,
scorched and crippled by love,
she only has green-frothed cheese
chunks in the fridge and I have to tell her,
while coming back from Mt. Olympus,
the rotten grinder in the back
of the car is making me nauseous.
Didn't know if we had toilet paper in the house.
Has asked me 40 times since I got home
"how good does it feel to be in your own bed?"
which smells like dog and cat piss.
Returning home from my Mt. Olympus, bus
driver saying I've got four hundred friends on Facebook
and no one gets my sarcasm when I laugh and say good job,
as if I were not one of their own.
Everybody is repeating themselves and everybody thinks
I am the one who is crazy, screeching, the girl at Applebee's
who won't stop screaming, and my ash puddle mother, she whispers
how pleasant,
Coming home from my Olympus, armed
with my mason-jar-filled education and hemp-
woven brain, we were once gods, but now my jaw
grieves, growing wisdom teeth, the pain prodding
I am one of their own.
There are two things I know Hera does in secret
and that's: one smoke in the bathroom,
ashes simmering on pallid porcelain
and blowing smolders into toilet water, and two
order vodka in her seltzer, making jokes at Applebee’s
with the waitress about her overprotective-
daughter, whispers conspiring Make it double.
Coming back from Mt Olympus I fight fits of rage
and tears against the dashboard of the car, plastic
imprint toyota against my face.
Zues’ whore runs into to the gas station for yet another can
of dog food, while filling her purse full of those mini
wine bottles no one else buys, leavin’ us without a penny-
poor, cursed, longing.
Right before leaving Mt. Olympus when Zues
looks me in the eyes and says “I am proud, my son”
I can only look back for the last time and say, “Dear father,
I’m a girl.”
I count eight tubs of freezer burnt ice cream for every
year we have lived in this Gods forsaken house.
Coming back from Mt. Olympus and all I can remember
is being four years old and smelling like
grilled cheese
and diaper rash
and car exhaust.
I am hungry, and my dear mother,
scorched and crippled by love,
she only has green-frothed cheese
chunks in the fridge and I have to tell her,
while coming back from Mt. Olympus,
the rotten grinder in the back
of the car is making me nauseous.
Didn't know if we had toilet paper in the house.
Has asked me 40 times since I got home
"how good does it feel to be in your own bed?"
which smells like dog and cat piss.
Returning home from my Mt. Olympus, bus
driver saying I've got four hundred friends on Facebook
and no one gets my sarcasm when I laugh and say good job,
as if I were not one of their own.
Everybody is repeating themselves and everybody thinks
I am the one who is crazy, screeching, the girl at Applebee's
who won't stop screaming, and my ash puddle mother, she whispers
how pleasant,
Coming home from my Olympus, armed
with my mason-jar-filled education and hemp-
woven brain, we were once gods, but now my jaw
grieves, growing wisdom teeth, the pain prodding
I am one of their own.
There are two things I know Hera does in secret
and that's: one smoke in the bathroom,
ashes simmering on pallid porcelain
and blowing smolders into toilet water, and two
order vodka in her seltzer, making jokes at Applebee’s
with the waitress about her overprotective-
daughter, whispers conspiring Make it double.
Coming back from Mt Olympus I fight fits of rage
and tears against the dashboard of the car, plastic
imprint toyota against my face.
Zues’ whore runs into to the gas station for yet another can
of dog food, while filling her purse full of those mini
wine bottles no one else buys, leavin’ us without a penny-
poor, cursed, longing.
Right before leaving Mt. Olympus when Zues
looks me in the eyes and says “I am proud, my son”
I can only look back for the last time and say, “Dear father,
I’m a girl.”