He caught me before I
had the chance to
get high
or even vandalize at the
old age of 15.
When I was older,
Dad held my hand and
told me I
couldn’t drive worth a damn,
so I called my friend Sung
with the salvia and rolled
cigarettes
who lived upstairs from the
driver’s ed class.
That was
my first week away
from him.
When I got to college,
my roommate wanted to kick it,
so we hit a glass chillum
before he turned around
and started selling the weed.
Nice guy.
I told Dad about it
right before I had to move out of
the dormitories.
He drove the 40 minutes to and from Clarksville in silence.
We arrived at home,
and he said to hit the road
before he came back.
This gave me
20-90 minutes to figure out
how my life had become this
disastrous green true-to-life novella
adapted to the two-in-one big screens
closed to the grey truth.
I called a girl whose name
was commonplace
because such a grand exit merited
a car, which she had.
We sailed away on her
white automatic Ford ship
down the driveway
to the left
to the right
and to the left and right again
until all I could see of my home
were my tears.
