Promised Land

I don’t care if I get rained on
this day was meant to take its time
outside where we’re allowed to smoke
and choke on all the words we try to analyze.
I’m fine with being stupid for the fun of it.
A clown without its makeup on,
just another person walking down the street.
I think she’s far more beautiful with it off,
but then again that’s not a comment
I should make.
A woman with no home around to stay in
pulls a tooth out of her head
with just some pliers she took with her
when she left her family burning down
without her, and her father drinks
his whisky in the flames.
He always used to talk about America
like it was something here to save them
from beyond. Where everyone could show up
and belong to something bigger
than themselves, but that was only
stuff in stories on the shelves.
For a while when she was living
like a troll under a bridge she would
send packages of things found
on the highway to her friends
with any money that she hadn’t spent
to feed herself the bounty of the limitless
convenience stores around her.
She was sure that she would walk
until she couldn’t anymore,
and wherever she collapsed
would be her own piece of the promised land,
stolen and resold to her for everything.