Child-Like State

Some days I wake up in a child-like state
ANGRY
at all the bad turns my life has taken
frustrated that the future cannot erase
THE PAST
but then I reawaken and remember
that I am so much luckier

BECAUSE I will always understand:

~ what it feels like to be
punched in the stomach
by someone who claims to love me
slapped across the face
shaken by the throat ~

AND what it feels like to be:

~ scared to death
to sleep in my bed
BECAUSE
there isn't a lock on the door
and I am only 7 years old

I will always know what it feels like to:

~hide beneath the bed
and in the cupboard
or in the back of my closet
or underneath the boiler tank in the basement
when hide and seek is not an innocent game
ANYMORE

what it feels like to:

sit in a chair
in a psychiatrist's office
at 8 years old ~ week after week
and be asked - oh so nicely
would I like to talk about ANYTHING?
"not really" I reply
but I colour the pictures
that are no longer pictures
and play with the dolls
that are not really dolls
but tools for trying to interpret
what I think and feel
when I said I didn't want to talk about it
NOT TODAY
I spend a lot of time reading
trying to understand a world
where adults cannot protect children
a world I was unprepared to enter
but thrust into anyway
a world other children I know
don't understand
except you do

I don't tell him that
my best friend leads
a secret, double life like mine
and we share what we already know about the world
at 8 and 9 years old

Even though we try to be children
~ we play at parks
and dress up Barbie dolls ~
we are already disillusioned and confused

AND I wonder if my life would have been easier
if my parents weren't so well-educated
weren't so good at problem-solving and counselling
and they tell me, "white lies are ok."
"no one needs to know our family business"
and alternately that
'It's important to talk about what is bothering you"
Knowing I will not

Or they drag us to churches where
the lessons teach us
that all of the painful things we've experienced
are SINS
and I know I'm in danger of going to hell
ALREADY
just for being an object of
TEMPTATION
and we were already
turned inside out and upside down
before we came

AND as I grow up I'm less confused
and I understand that is not my fault
even if it still feels as though it is
even if I looked older for my age
AND suicide was cool for a year or two
but I never tried it

BECAUSE I have my poetry
and my best friend, who's an amazing artist

AND she is the guardian of my wounded heart
as I am of hers
She protects me ... even from myself
'cause she knows, as I do
that there is a very fragile, fine line
between love and abuse
and that I cannot always see
the difference between what's
bullshit and what's true

AND we are grafted at the heart
by love & pain & fear & friendship
and all of those purposely forgotten
uneraseable things
which mean that
No matter who we love
or where we live
we are always together
NEVER APART

ily, 2001