Mother called me a devil child
Daddy called me a curse
They sent me away on a long black train
To an unfamiliar town full of strangers
They sent me away, and they sold me
To a man with a greasy smile
Who held my arm, too tight
And someone took my carpet bag
And I knew I’d never see it again, somehow
The sky was yellow, I remember
And my stomach churned grey
As he led me across the cobblestoned town
To a campsite, gaudy, ugly, old
The mustard-and-ketchup striped tents
Looming ahead like strange, distorted
Technicolor prison bars
The people milling about the site
Were sad and haunting, looming as if
They weren’t really there at all
Their faces cracked like dry paint
The air was itchy, like my cotton dress,
(But mother always said,
“Never scratch”
Because she didn’t like the sound it made
Nails against scales, not pleasing to the ear)
He drew back the tattered curtain-door
Of the smallest tent and said,
“Welcome home, dearie,”
And I could feel the bile in my stomach rise
As I looked into their faces
And they all said
- Or at least they all seemed to say -
“You’re with your own kind now, freak”
I gulped as the curtain closed behind me.