Blanket and Crib

Safe, safe - enjoy your time feeling so safe,
and treasure that smile on your face, okay?
Because time will see that it’s replaced in a while.
So go on, smile.
And handshakes all around: that’s your style,
and no one would call it denial,
for you’re not even sure what’s in store.

And it’s more
than you’ll be able to take standing up straight.
And it won’t be okay.
And you won’t be somebody who it’s just happening to,
because it’s a trap that you, and only you,
have laid. Laid with a towel up over your face,
in your armchair, just lying in wait,
waiting forces were gathering outside your door.
They sharpened their knives
and smiled with no smiles in their eyes,
a little bit larger in size
and a little bit hungrier for that tiny prize.

And my mother once said
“Son, remember this, no matter what someone did:
that they once were just a kid at breast  and in bib,
in blanket and crib.
So just reach inside yourself
and find the part that still needs help,
find that part in someone else
and you’ll do good,”
so I thought that I would.

Hey - I love you,
it goes without saying.
I would give you the world on a tray,
though they’re already tracing a line across your throat.
Far too late in the game you’ll find that you have been betrayed:
propped up and pushed into your place.
I could claim that it all would go great,
but the reason I came
is to say that it won’t.
You should know that it won’t,
and so, Phillip, let go.