no one else more medicated

i was nine
somehow in a red number
those kids i was never friends with
were murdering small animals
with their idiot laughs

i never figured it out
until now
when i gather that their parents
must have been natal drug users

and now when i walk into a car dealership
and get refused a loan with perfect credit
it is no longer such a perfect mystery

i was eighteen
and dancing on candles made of sticks
i worked in some awful carpentry job
and the kids there had drug parties
they'd drop pieces of wood
and cut their fingers
but you could figure by looking at them
just that they were sick

i was twenty two
and robbed blind
by a psychiatrist who said i was paranoid
of what but birds
when i had dodged
the red edges of murder
with a kid's figurine

i figure now
the hidden gears
of money fate and conspiring fears
are just in rat shit
from drug shipments
not that i'd care
but this country is sick

where were the motions of humility and grief
when we lost a thousand souls
it was just anger and more murder
but now we have a saying around here
that's not "one more number six feet under"
but that you can't expect much from an animal
when its drugs are boiled in battery acid

so lock the doors
and lock your mouth
the best of it
has headed South
through filthy motel room curtains
and ash filled cars
driving in reverse to funeral director's wealth
that is inscribed in bone
but matchless when they cut that final check
that final check
that final tear
rested in someone's fear
of being still
when they have been dead
most of their lives

bang bang bang bang