About a Dream, without a Childhood.

When I was a child
was I a child
was I ever- did I ever- is there ever-
such a thing as

child(hood)

what a word. what a world.
loaded with caution and connotation and
the soft silent dread at the end of the day
of waking up tomorrow

my childhood was
a tub of pickles and cheese slices plain
scooby-doo on loop, up loud, so the silence wouldn't find me
video games played like a lifestring like a pulse like a gateway to somewhere anywhere else
no right answers to endless expectations
and a cat tortured past loving

my childhood was
fear and the smell of the runway
the sound of plane engines fighting their own weight
no turning back
but looking back
trying not to look back, just look ahead
alone
not alone
intangible protectors running alongside
white fur and bloodblack wings


my childhood was
sisters and shouting and a room too small for four
beds every-which-way and scattered stories
I was always the oldest and protector
there was always someone from whom we needed to hide

what kind of make-believe is that

it was my make-believe
because it wasn't until college that I would realize

this fucking sucks

this isn't fucking okay

this wasn't okay.

I am not okay.

I am not okay with the way you treated me, treated us.
I am not okay with the way you treated her.
My sole stability, my only advocate, and you treated her like shit.
Yelling, demanding, expecting, refusing
to talk for days on end.
no wonder I was scared of the silence!
demanding so much and providing so little
and it still took me so long to see
it took you shutting me out to see
it took you throwing me to the wolves with out even a wince, or a stutter at the command

Weak, you are.
weak of will, of spirit, of heart, of word.
It isn't that you have nothing to give.
It's that you don't give, even what is free, like
time love compassion attention
listening
you didn't listen

(11)
did you know that I avoided you? I avoided you on shabbat afternoons so that
you wouldn't have the chance to ask me to study
you room felt uncomfortable even then
too much yours, too intimate with someone who still thought of me as a child
(if I ever was)
to be shut in with you, no space, no room to sit
just you and the text that I could
not
read

I still can't read it

It still burns me like plasma,
that I cannot read my own tongue
the language of my heartblood

And you shoved it in my face
weekly
insistently
with a guilt-trip at avoiding the pain of it, avoiding you
do you even know there was pain in it?

as I grew, and my language didn't?
as you struggled to push me, challenge me, make me read, make me read
when I couldn't
you pushed me into nothing but my own pain and insecurities
and here we are

because you don't listen.

when you met Scott, at my bat-mitzva, I remember that you
liked him
the monster who burned happiness alive, who haunted my waking, and
you LIKED him.
had the nerve to say that my mother must be tale-telling, because
you
liked
him

1/?