"It's all about respect for the dead."
Callous words and the leftover pieces of breakfast between my teeth
They're all I have left
And my tongue was already dislodging the last of Fruit Loops and cough syrup when my bus rolled up
I'm only coming up to this run down town
To show them they were wrong to judge with their harsh words
Not because I miss the comfort of my mother
Or the weight of the world.

Darkness descended
The streetlights allow me to pretend
Step in puddles of light like I'm four
Step on sidewalk cracks like I'm still young and dumb and vengeful
By the time I arrive, I'm dripping wet over the tatami mats in the entrance
Mama took Japan to heart

"Oh you're finally here."
Breakfast is gone, Aunt Miriam
My contempt is alone and spilling and I'm spitting straight at you
Face like my old Play-Doh
Not quite smoothed out
No matter how much I nipped and tucked
"I beg your pardon!"
If it was up to me, you would beg
For real, you insufferable witch
With your backyard altar and your occult voodoo
She's always said my aura was rotten
Rotten like the browning teeth she used to have before a fallen angle licked and nipped at her veins and she bought herself a house on a dark card

"You're just a kid. What do you know?"
She said this to me in times of adolescent exaggeration
I used to think I knew about pain
Oh Achey Breaky Heart
And a bottle of Jack
I'm burning your picture
I'm never looking back
But this feels like I've been bathed in Styx
And perfumed in noxious gas
And brushed my hair with a crown of thorns
To sit in a room full of people
And know you're just a thorn in all their sides

"Don't pity the dead; pity the living."
That's Dumbledore
Maybe I am just a stupid kid
Hogwarts, Twilight
Fantasy, that's all it is
But I feel like I'm going through Hunger Games while the smell of Mama's cooking hangs in the air with a tinge of something wrong
Wrapping around me and tugging me towards the kitchen
I swear I can hear her humming a long forgotten song

I feel her Hands around me like I when was little
"You can do it! You can do it!"
I can't do anything
"You're one of a kind."
Just like the rest.
That's why we're all the damn same. Shallow, narcissistic, and numb to everything around us
I still don't know why I came
My grandmother tells me that I need Jesus in my life
But I could never praise the name of anyone but myself

Still, we all join hands in prayers I haven't recited in years
Sister's in the kitchen now
Myths my mother told me
They are all debunked now
But I embrace them
And I let them hold me up
With arms tiny and warm
"It's all about respect for the dead."
On that, I remain torn.