you are empty

this Saturday
he wakes up in the
afternoon
and
curses his dreams

Goodness, how long
has it been
since the last pleasant
dream?
What about the last
nightmare?

Even nightmares were
better than
what he was having now

A void
a nothingness

empty

Which does remind him of
an older day when he
used to play some
videogame titled
‘You Are Empty’
on big bro’s computer

fairly good times
with nightmares that were
better than dreams of
nothingness

The game, horror though it
had been, did not give him
nightmares

big bro did

"Since you wanna play so hard,"
big bro had said, "we gon’ make
it more interesting.
Every time you die,
Perro gets the can!"

Perro was the little parrot
dad got him
before going away. It stood
in a small cage in
the hallway

and the can… It was
a can of bug spray big bro
used to spray the
poor thing with
when he was in a sadistic
mood
which happened too often

Mother was away
at work
or in the company of some
new man she was
trying to convince to
become a stepfather

She had very little
success with both. With
everything.
And she was tired.
At all times.

Big bro had all the power in
the house
so how could he not
abuse it?

It’s just normal to
abuse power
when you have it

The miracle is when
you don’t

but there are no
miracles

So Perro got sprayed
a lot

And got sick a lot
but didn’t die

His feathers fell off
and the scales of his
little feet
peeled off and looked
like boiled corn flakes

yet still
death would not
take him

Abused creatures have
their own way
to spit back into the
face of their abusers

It’s for this very reason that he
decided today
to make another visit
to his big bro in prison

Maybe even buy
something
nice for him

Many thanks to Gobblers by Masticadores for featuring my poem, "you are empty"! 

Check it out HERE!

Thank you!