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Empty wrappers on empty tables,

Strewn about in bright bouquets,

Metallic blue, neon orange, stop-sign red,

Big black block letters marching,

But none are coherent and they

Slide like song lyrics down sheet music and

Climb up in peaks that reach as

High as mountains.

Every day I come home to the roller coaster,

Each car wildly rearing in impossible angles,

Breaching whales stuck in midair.

Brother surveys the scene,

Eyes travelling over the gilded horizon,

Mouth lined with peculiar brown smudges,

Chin wobbling on its hinges.

Blond straw hair sticks up in a fan on his head,

A peacock array that defies all gravity.

He could stare at it for hours,

Eyes turning red and bugging out,

Drool dripping out of the corners.

Our parents gnaw on sheets of bright yellow

As they pace back before us,

Teeth crunching on mechanical hinges,

Tongues colliding with solid sugar bricks.

Sister huddles in the corner,

Eyes dark and stretched like taffy,

Bones sticking to the flesh,

Tugging at their thin bonds so weak,

Her ribs poking, pointing, accusing.

Her own thin tongue flicks out across pale lips,

Sweeping over dry desert,

Finding bloody cracks in the sandpaper lining.

Sometimes I cannot keep my eyes from her,

Sometimes I look towards the grazing cows,

Sometimes I drift to fix Brother’s hair.

Vainly, my hands rest on his shoulders,

Bone cracking under too-tight a grip.

Together we glare at the dirty table.