Where My Mama Lives

I was supposed to buy a house 

In Illinois

Where my mama lives

Had big plans

A closed in porch

And steady promises

But the job fell through

In Illinois

And there my credit went

Like when I came home 

From the war

Back in 2007 

Fell on HARD times 

And ended up

On unemployment

And 6 months later 

Kicked me off

Like they enjoyed it

They said I was done

With living off 

Handouts of the government

They said that I 

Owed Illinois

THAT I OWED ILLINOIS 

For what I’d taken

Me with my broken brain

And shattered life

Hangovers and hands shaking

With a Purple Heart

Beating in my chest

And on the pavement

Saying I can’t be on the government tit

I’m the MILK,

Baby

There’s no honor 

Bein first in line 

To catch a beating

While you’re up next

Cheering me on 

Saying “This we believe in”

All that pride 

In Illinois

For me getting eaten

Well that builder took 

Five Thousand Dollars

For all his expenses

One last fuck me

From the Fuck You State

That Land of Lincoln

Just please Lord

Keep me out of Illinois

Where my mama lives

I just can’t afford it 

Anymore

Where my mama lives

Published by Michael Le Buhn

I am an interfaith Chaplain with a Master's of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School. I am also a disabled veteran living with PTSD. I love comic books and gardening and I talk about the world the way I understand the world - through stories.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: