Karen’s Just a Kid by Matthew Milia

That photo of your dad at your current age
Splattered like the ceiling of the microwave
Now the TV's splattered too

Someone sucked the sweet milk
From the bottom of your bowl
Your mom's been sad
I think she lost control
She tried to call you but you let it ring
Each toll for you

Don't believe
Each summer evening
Will be grieving in any way for you

We all know the plan
And the glow from your suntan
Will orbit in the planetary
Through and through

Maybe Karen's just a kid
But I still wanna know
What she hid inside
Her little room

I'm feeling like a little boy
With nowhere else to go
With nothing left to taste
But spit and gloom

And how'd you get so prone to this
Exaggerated loneliness?
When you can't even catch your breath at all

And Karen just turned 21
And you still yearn for anyone
To answer when you call
But Karen's just a kid

That summer you went mad down in Waterford
Your mom and dad went unmonitored
You tried to call them but the line was dead

Now I can't even tell you what time of the year
We find ourselves
Or what hemisphere
Or the shape your mouth took
When you looked to me and said

You said
Don't believe each little evening
Will be leaving
Its tender mark on you
We all know the score
And the jacket that you wore
Belonged to someone you swore
Would be immaculate and true

Maybe Karen's just a kid
But I still wanna know
What she hid inside
Her little room

I'm feeling like a little boy
With nowhere else to go
And nothing left to taste
But spit and gloom

And the cops creep up 14th Street
At the stop sign in the backseat
I see some kid I knew in study hall

And every day the world just shrinks in
Some familial extinction
Till it's so very small
And Karen's just a kid

Appears on Alone at St. Hugo