This is the song that never ends.
Yes, it goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it
not knowing what it was,
but we’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends . . .
—Lamb Chop’s Sing- Along, Play-Along
I am my mother’s puppet. There has always been a succession
of men: frail, empty packets of sweetener. Some people
started singing it not knowing what it was.
Look, I am six years old; my pointer finger raises
to seek out a husband and settles on a yellow-haired boy
passing by on a different school bus. I love him
like a paper doll. He will keep us from the end
of the song; we’ve heard the finale is an ache, a starving.
Here is an infinite loop—my mother’s naked body
working on top of a stranger, the yellow bus and the blonde boy’s
pink face staring out the window, my puppet-mouth
quickening with the song of my mother: love me, love me,
Terri Linn Davis is a neurodivergent, pop-culture-obsessed American writer. She is the co-editor of Icebreakers Lit, a chaotic, loving home featuring collaborative writing and the host of the podcast Too Lit to Quit: the Podcast for Literary Writers. You can read some of her work in Taco Bell Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, Five South and elsewhere. She lives in a 189 year old haunted farmhouse with her co-habby and their three children. You can find her on Twitter @TerriLinnDavis and on her website www.terrilinndavis.com
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