Contagion

Goodbye to the days

That slowly drawled on

While we swam in the pool

And soaked in the sun.

Lots of smiles

Sips of beer

(I’d try to show off)

Taking a swig.

While I remember the screaming

After dinner time, a lot.

Remember the intensity

The anger

And my fear.

How badly I wanted you to stop.

I’d run to my room and

Cry crawled up in a ball,

Small…

Not much a little girl can do,

But feel it all.

The boys would come to comfort.

So “funny” how for a moment I can forget, yet

Now, I remember all the days,

The words,

The noise.

The faces.

I still wonder why

Third grade, I’d wake up to you

Making me cry,

Every morning before school,

Stuck, frozen, under your rule.

But you saw me in a letter.

Was it really me

That acted so badly?

Or did you need to

Be better?

Because now I do it too;

I do it too and it makes me hate me,

It makes me hate you.

It makes me hate and

Hate until someone else

Feels it too.

He yelled at her and him,

Who yelled at him,

Who yelled at him,

Who yelled at me.

4 fathers cyclically

Accuse and I’ve no one,

Myself, to abuse.

Beat me up mentally while I

Try to remain strong,

While you sing the song

“I’m crazy” as if,

It wasn’t you all along.

Confusion is no

Illusion when you’re

Fearing who to hurt,

Burying them in the dirt,

While kissing the tears that

Endlessly run down their shirt.

Now here I am learning

To unlearn, trying to quit it.

But I’ve spread it too to someone else

That I love; unconsciously I

Act out the bit, because that is what it’s

Been and how this story goes…

Anger at the root of all of it,

It’s just what we all know.