i know things
i feel things
i see things
that no young man
let alone a child
should have been through

but it has left
me with something
besides tracks of scar tissue
and internal organs shot
to hell

call it a super power
a left over
an after shock
but i can see it in their faces
and even if they have laugh lines
and little wrinkles around their eyes
no matter the crinkling
something in their face is just
so **** sinister

and i see them
with their plastic smiles
and their clawed hands
the empty beer bottles
and the ripped up hand-made
cards and pictures
this is no childhood
and i want to run away

i am surrounded by them
these fake people
these picture perfect
skin-deep parents
and suddenly i am
a little boy again

i am so afraid
sleeping under my bed
so i cannot be found
curling up under my desk
biting my knuckles so i do not
make a sound
because no matter how much it hurts
i do not want her
to see me
to hear me

i am only a little boy
smaller than my mother
and she is so tall
i cower in her shadow
shake in the vise-like grip
that she has on my wrists
my upper arms
my shoulders
and the bruises may fade
but the trauma nightmares don’t

i am so scared
my mother is the big bad wolf
she can swallow me whole
her teeth are longer than my arm
and i am so confused
i don’t know why she is so mean
why she hates me so

i am just a little boy
and it all hurts so much
mommy mommy mommy
please don’t hurt me
please don’t yell at me
i can’t just laugh off the bruises
and your angry voice ringing in my ears
mommy mommy
please