There were seven of us in my family:
Three big-brothers, one big-sister
A big father, a big mother
And me
They all died
And here is my cry…
Ours was a home of the party-line
Lesser-laws could be said out loud
That was fine,
But the Martial-law
Was a stoney, silent line
You did not cross.
DON’T TELL
DON’T SHARE
DON’T MAKE OBVIOUS
DON’T THINK ABOUT IT…
Charismatic daddy creeping around to our rooms at night
Hypnotized and hypnotizing
Mommy loving her notion of us yet the mere hint of criticizing,
Of revealing the fact there was no true-love in her heart
And she’d turn on you like a poison dart.
We law-abiding children-citizens of the kingdom
Were Suffocated, saturated, and deeply sad
Self-hatred seeped and steeped into our souls
“YOU are the bad ones…” we were told
And drinking excessively dulled the pain
Freebasing cocaine created another type of insane
The rush of petty (and not so petty crimes)
distracted…a lot
Rush, rush, rushing around to keep what you got
Except that
Real truth pounded,
and pushed, and pummeled
The backs of our teeth
Bleeding tongues
Bitten over and over
gagging back the grief
But When I was still my small little-self
I found some paper and a pencil on a forgotten shelf
And I wrote that
I didn’t feel good
I wrote that something was wrong
I wrote and wrote and wrote
every thought-song that my little brain-washed brain could squeeze out
I said it!
I knew it!
I expressed it!
AND
I am alive because of it!