Hero for a Transient

And I was a sign,

“Transients Welcome”

Allergic to nuclear families,
2.5 times the norm,
who dance, without reservation
in mini-vans on soccer fields through bedtimes.
And she said, crisp and tongue-darting,
“Harbor me.”
We were the same
She told me so
affirmed for me and made it so

While they were having babies
We were getting rid of ours


Abandoned with broken hands, slaps to faces caused by pee-
stained couches and stolen diet pills,
with nuke-able dinners that slept in back seats with bi-polar parents

“Because I’m tired of forgiving,” I told her
and she aborted me too,
like a pulse a corpse doesn’t need,
by moving in with me.
sharing skeletons and clothes, too poor for closets
until I was sleeping on floorboards and hiding her from mother
with no aptitude for heroics

I wanted to be a motel
Roach infested
All smoking rooms
No Vacancy.
Blinking till she loved me
Blinking mother back to sane

I am a highway instead.
looking for forgiveness
For leaving them to find a hero.