Each building on the block
was comprised of
4 townhouse units.
There was another boy
a couple years younger whose
bedroom was on the other
side of the wall from
my own.
Sometimes I would laugh
because I could hear his
mother
beating the **** out of him.

It was funny to me
for some reason.
Hearing her angry ranting
and his wailing.
Like an unexpected
radio-drama.

But then I realized that
if I could hear his beatings
through that wall
he could also then
hear mine.

It wasn’t so funny
to me
after that..

Up until I was about
six years-old, and
figured out I wasn't crazy
for not liking
it, my father
and I would wrestle.

We'd play on his
bed, and all
was fine and
dandy, but
it usually ended
with him
putting a pillow
over
my face and
pinning me down
so that I was
unable to
move or breathe.

And I would
scream and
panic and lose
breath from
screaming and
struggling, and would
be waiting
to die.

Then he'd pull the
pillow
away, laughing.
But
seeing that I was
crying, he would
get angry and
say,

"I was just
playin' with you. You know I wouldn't hurt
you!"

Then he'd chase me away disgusted.
I'd go to my room feeling
confused.

Upset at myself for
being scared. For making
him so upset by
not getting the
joke.

The early encroachment of
darkness arrived hand in hand
with the naked black fingers of the
tree limbs.

Those fingers married to
the unmuffled wind
which now gasped and screamed
in fits of vitality (like
some terrified animal fighting
a trap) as it scraped itself across the frigid
concrete and over
the stiff dry blades of yellow grass,
and echoed that awful moan
across each and every hard
unforgiving surface
so that it could find the window
of my dark bedroom.

My nine year old self, under covers
eyes staring at the soft edged
steely-colored ceiling shadows
of streetlight-cast venetian blind windowframe.

Tar colored shadows pooled in the crevices
between the greys
extending in feathery obsidian tentacles
like summer pond leeches.

The crying wind carries with it
a cacophony of disparate portent.

From the trainyards, the
deep dead Cello of the engines
burrowing deep into my soul
accented by the prison door slammings
of coupling cars, and the off key
bellowing of the air horns.

In the alley the clashing metal of trash collection
percussion overlaying the robotic-dinosaur call of the garbage truck.

Sirens piercing in the distance with
visions of blood and violence.

So alone, in the darkness in my mind
this lullaby of horror
Carries me into oblivion.