because you shouldn't worry
about mommy and daddy not being home
because you should feel love
because mommy and daddy stay home
because you shouldn't be scared
because the dressers hit the floor and the banging gets louder
because you shouldn't cry
because mommy and daddy can't do anything but fight
because you should be a little girl
not worrying if daddy is ever going to come home
little girl
Pain cuts like a knife,
Hard for me to breathe.
Knowing what happen,
Enable to believe.
Losing almost everything,
When he walked out the door.
Heart shattered to pieces,
Smashing to the floor.
Picking myself up,
After laying on the tile.
Overcome with hatred.
Feeling so vile.
Thoughts racing fast,
Zooming right by.
Many points in my life,
I wanted to die.
I could have sworn
the child was not
going to cry
when I told her
to stop chewing
on her fingers
and stay close so
I can see her
but yeah she cried
and yeah she screamed
and she stood on
the equipment
of the playground
looking like she
wanted to hitch
a ride out of
Why?
Mother,
Whys is the grass green?
Why is the sky blue?
Why is the world big?
Why do people say its small too?
Why do people die?
Why are babies born young?
Why are there taste buds?
In my tongue?
Why do I weep?
When I cut my knee?
Why does one and one make two and not three?
And why, mummy,
Just one more,
When father left,
Three kids…
masks
just part of their play
What's in a person's name,
past it being theirs to own
and to notify of a neighbor's call?
What binds it to us - past remembrance
and the need to write to identify?
Why should we use these names
that hold nothing for us
past a label applied by other labels?
Why should I keep this name
that is tied to nothing but myself;
nothing but a haggard child
with eyes and smile both tired and aching
in a dimly-lit room I often forget?
Why, indeed.
Once upon a time,
In a world not unlike your own,
There existed a puppeteer.
He was a happy man,
And he loved to put on shows
For children who would wander by.
Using puppets he created
With his own two hands,
He would tell stories
Of the olden days,
When knights roamed
Looking for dragons to slay.
One night, he was making a new puppet
For his show the next day.
It was his proudest work,
And he was excited to show it off.
He climbed up the ladder, one, two, three
The ground fell lower, three, two, one
The sky came closer, one, two, three.
Up went the kid, four, five, six
Down went the ground, six, five, four
Up was the Future, bright and bold
Down was the Past, dull and dead.
The kid sat at the top
And the slide took him down
In one smooth rush,
On a roly, jolly ride.
The wind hit his face,
The ground zoomed up -
And thud! He was back where all it began.
Outside my window, below on the ground, the Basketball players.
In the mornings I awake to the drumming of the ball on the concrete floor
And to the yelps and shouts of children playing basketball.
Lifting the curtain, through the haze of the mosquitoe net,
I watch them, lithe, graceful
Jumping and running like antelopes in the savannah.
Dribbling the ball, they run to and fro
Across the court, turning, twisting, ducking
Swiftly passing the ball, faking a throw
Blocking, trying to snatch, moving like cats
On a hot tin roof and then leap and lift the ball to the basket
Some bounce off the board, some slip neatly through the net
Only to be grabbed and loped again and again.
they were filled to the brim
by the only good thing in their life
they then overflowed
creeping out windows in the dead
of the raging night
they breathed in the vapour relief
relapsing amongst the towering
trees
the corner of metal houses
were the closest thing to a hug
the sirens went around
posters crinkled in the wind
"have you seen this broken child?"
the screams still ring in their
pierced ears
now silenced by the peace
Except these people haven't any dominion over you that
You don't hand to them yourself,
In your misguided attempts at self-parenting
A seed cannot water itself,
And requires the gentle warming touch of the sun
And yet we try to raise ourselves in the shadows
Of our own reprisals
We are children with no mothers
Rushing through a well-lit world with our eyes closed
"Open
Open
Open your eyes!"
And the voice of our collective heart remains pleading
Just stop running for a moment,
Hold your hands out to the void
And dare yourself to feel
In his dream he was at the end
of a long hall.
Was it a dark hall?
At the other end of the hall he saw the nude figure of his
father
bent over an object he could not define
moving up and down.
He began to walk down the hall, walk
towards his father.
As he came closer he saw
his father was pumping up and down up and down
working with a bicycle pump
blowing something up.
Arriving he saw his father was pumping
a goomey women she got bigger and bigger
and his father kept pumping