It was a human night, sultry like, smoky like exhaust pipe
Attached to a garden hose, windows closed, smoking jacket, elegant pipe
If memory served me right, like a terabyte, it was sorta like
Devil's cologne brimstone, wasn't feeling right
In a state of fright, more horrific and Halloween-like
It came apart at the seams, passed us, closer to daylight
That went beyond words, the night the incident occurred
Suddenly perturbed from the revolving of harsh words
So he opened his bedroom door to investigate and found his dad right there in the hallway
4 a.m. they welded wires, my dad in the hallway
Then he heard his dad plead to his mom to come out of the bathroom
Then he wondered what made his mother lock herself in the bathroom
Through the door she said no, he said the dad was wrong
The dad said, take your little ass to bed, mind your business and move along
So obediently he died
He did what he was told and went away the next day
His mother looked at him, embarrassed, her book like Harold's crayon
In the book she read to him the night before
Felt pleasant dreams when he gleefully greased the morning
The same purple in the book, the color of his mother's eyes swollen
Whether it's custom or designer, in a bar fight it's a shiner
But on a woman it's temporarily eyeliner
Love is a fist that wrapped a weak apology
Dad's temper, her turmoil, and her partnership in hell
At the words it's easy to tell, everyone that she fell
A traumatized little man, but witnesses dashed
Flair and temper at first hand
In severe reprimand, when dad used to make him strip
And still cringe from the memory of his father's grasp on his grip
And the vortex spinning him round and round by his wrist
The way the belt and the skin never missed
Aged, leather waist, size thirty-six
The belt that felt like a thousand bee stings when it licked
The same way I treat a beat when I spit
On his little body I ran it but one time
When he tried to run, the belt missed
And the marks seemed indented on his face
Massed the resemblance of a me, say the grill on the bun, well done
On the burger between the bun
So the other kids in school started calling Big Mac just for fun
In real life it wasn't a he, it was a her
The welts on her face looked like she fell asleep in the tanning bed
On top of Venetian blinds
On top of Venetian blinds
On top of Venetian blinds
On top of Venetian blinds