My Biopic

It starts with a wail
and a tear.

The action rises
as my dad marks
the top of my skull
on the wooden post
next to the stairwell.
He uses a pencil
and my hair crunches
as he draws the line.

The lines stop climbing:
Crisis! Something else
is rising constantly,
an action unspoken
like a prayer.

There is a girl
and another, the first
a tattoo, the other
a piercing.

Sometimes there is rain
which pats my head
like a withered aunt's hand.

The denoument is filled
with cigarettes.

The resolution
is a long nap
on dirty bedsheets,
stained with my seed
and covered in
bits of my skin.