new favorite poem

it's christmas, and i shouldn't be focusing on stuff like this right now. but i'm reading a fic in which this was referenced, and just went omg, yes.




Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad,
They may not mean to but they do
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself.