“It’s for your own good!”
my father belted.
My mother did the same
at the dinner table with peas.
“It’s for your own good.”
Mr. Drury in grade 7 had me
write lines of PPPPPPPs, cooing
“It’s for your own good.”
Cigarettes are now 10 bucks a pack
and casinos 1,000 dollar plane rides away.
“It’s for your own good.” , they say.
Seat belts, sanitoriums and saints
always a safe, sane, short step away and
it’s all for our own good.
My wife, my ever always wife
books me monthly to see a doctor
so much a dunce as a doctor can be
all he offers are pills and pleasantries.
“For your own good.”, they both say.
Wars, weddings, sprayed green lawns
Taxes, work and camp fire songs.
Papal proclamations, government laws
“It’s all for your own good”
someone, somewhere quietly huffaws.
My life is more than half done
and I have yet to truly taste
what we call “free”.
I’ve followed footsteps and
danced for my own good
like I was taught and told
never, never learning to be.
Thinking back, I now know
how I came to be, who I am
this man, here and now
finally at home in the world
on an edge, now so aware
of what really is good for me.
Simply put, no longer bending
my flusher broke.
It’s like the one day you wake up
and looking out the window
see no jello trees or
while at your writing desk realize
that the dictionary you’ve
thumbed and treasured
was written by a peg-legged pedophile
and you head out the door
to write your own.
