Attention

He'll break bottles
And he'll crack cans
And he'll crack corn
And he'll crack skulls
And hell crack his head open
If we don't give him
Attention

If we don't pay attention
He's going to break something
That can't be fixed

He's going to make a mess
Cause a scene
Shout until he runs out of air
Pass out and wake up
And do it again

That'll be the price we pay
For not paying him
Enough
Attention

He got into our lives
Like moths into clothing

We feel like it's our fault
That he is the way he is
That he does the things he does
That he screams
And kicks
And acts like the child
He never stopped being

There will be accusations
And histrionics
And hysteria
And hell to pay
If we don't pay him
Attention

He'll tell us
How he spent the money
We loaned him

Money we knew
We were never getting back

He'll give us all the gory details
We don't want to hear

About dark corners
And back alleys
And other dime store mystery cliches
That probably aren't true

The truth is he probably misbehaved
In a very mundane way

Gambled our money
Or spent it on shit
He locked away somewhere

So nobody could ever accuse him
Of having anything

He likes believing he's poor
And deprived
And starved for
Attention

And when we finally give in

When we finally sit down next to him
And say 'What?  What do you want?'

Brother
Father
Baby boy

What is it?

What is it you need?

He'll look at you
And me
And put his head
In one of our laps
And say--

'This.  Just this.'

As if it were
The simplest thing
In the world