tw: trauma of childhood neglect

1.
There’s a dropped toy in the hallway.
It needs to go back to where it belongs.

Supper is in a few minutes and everyone is busy
setting dishes and washing hands
and here I am in the hallway
about to pick up this toy.
Mom and Dad will be proud
of their ten-year-old son
even if they don’t see it happen.

There’s a dropped toy in the hallway.
It needs to go back to where it belongs.

2.
My favorite thing about our bedrooms are the walls.
They’re not a solid color or wallpaper
like I’ve seen in everybody else’s rooms,
but white with green lines going in random directions,
like pine trees.
Mom says they were painted with feathers.
I think that’s really cool.

3. 
The youngest brother is running
down the hall toward the kitchen
and thinks he can dash beside me
bending down to pick up a toy from the floor.
We bump shoulders,
pressing him into the wall.
The screams that erupted!

A house thrown into chaos
parents thrust into action
What happened? What happened?
They’re goal is always–always–
how to get the crying to stop quick,
my brother
HE SQUEEZED MY ARM! HE SQUEEZED MY ARM!
There’s a toy in my hand, a stuffed animal
I was just trying to pick this up!

I was trying to make Mom and Dad proud.
Instead I “hurt” my brother and “lied” about it
so I’m sent to my room.
No video games for a week.

4.
I like to stare at my green feather-painted walls.
Because of how they’re made
there are patterns you can trace,
but they change ever so slightly.
There are stories all around me.
Animals running, 
stick people coming together and dancing
and you can sometimes make faces.

Except the faces kind of scare me.
Through punished tears
I can’t tell if their beginning to smile
or starting to scream.

I don’t want to be here anymore.

5.
Years later, I’m a teenager setting down to clean my room,
a lame thing
since it’s just going to get messy later
but dad just won’t let it go.
Every day Clean your room. Clean your room.

It’s hard to know where to begin
with piles of clothes, loose papers,
shoes, and books strewn about
but fine. Let’s just get this over with.

Except it doesn’t take long 
for old tendencies
to take over.
I’m tracing the patterns 
along walls feather-painted green 
when a new discovery stops me,
flash freezes me solid.

Amongst the feather-strokes
in block letters and black ink,
something I don’t remember writing,
but who else besides me to hold the pen…
 
 
HELP

6.
The years made me quiet.
It never mattered what I said,
it was the youngest brother who’d win in the end
because he was the loudest.
Mom and dad just wanted peace.

It’s not something I can blame anyone for.
This story has no villains;
just people who tragically overlooked shattering youth
who would never quite figure out how to relate.

I hate conflict
                        because I always lost.

I roll over
                because I never had a valid point.

I’m not confident
                              which in turn is unattractive

I’m silent
                 because nothing I said meant anything.

I was too young to know what was happening to me.
My parents too tired to see the cracks.
I do forgive them
but the damage–sense of helplessness–
of growing up in an environment 
that repeatedly dismissed my reality
may stay with me until the day I die.

7.
We eventually had that bedroom painted
meaning a stranger had to have looked at my cry,
but they never saw it
hidden in the natural chaos
of walls feather-painted green
forever mapped to my heart.

8.
There’s a dropped toy in the hallway.
It needs to go back to where it belongs.

A dropped toy in the hallway.
It needs to go back to where it belongs.

It needs to go back to where it belongs.

It needs to go back to where it belongs.

I needs to go back to where i belongs.