Your mother listens to Coal Chamber.

It's working a fourteen-hour day here and there
to pay for mistakes of your dead liver.
It's rinsing and repeating when the water turns gray
after said fourteen-hour day.

It's wondering if you left the sink running
or if your house is haunted, too.

It's peeling off the Band-Aid
and finding a tattoo of a Band-Aid.
You can't deny using sandpaper
when you ran out of tissues
or throwing bottles
when you ran out of ammo
that you should've rationed.

It's understanding when to bury hatchets
while maintaining the belief that even duct tape
and pocket knives can't fix some things.
You shouldn't have called, but you did
and at least now you know where you'll always stand.

It's staying out of all the gin joints in all the world.
It's telling Sam to never play it again
since neither of us can take it.
It's acknowledging that we never had Paris.

It's moving on.

It's ignoring the results of Sonny's initial car door test
and getting double the milk later on.

It's finally achieving it again, simultaneous completion
and knowing neither one is faking it, literally or otherwise.

It's realizing that no one really has any friends
just people who need favors
and we barter to get what we want
until what we need
but don't have
finally kills us.

It's late-night phone calls with eyes barely open
as best friends talk lent literature
while disregarding hypocrisy in verse.
(Double the milk as those further back, remember?)

It's telling you to go fuck yrself
and going to bed
almost content
though not for that reason.

Goodnight, motherfuckers.