my childhood demons
far outnumber my remaining years
i could waste a lifetime
mitigating them
i shan’t
i’ll do a few shots of holy water instead
these motherfuckers
don’t get
free rent in my head
Categories
Tag: Abuse
how tranquil
it must be
sailing along
in the good ship right
upon a sea of wrong
that’s the blistering irony
about know-it-alls
sociopaths
predators
and candy coated pricks
who demonstrate
impervious response
they have a choice
whether or not
they acknowledge
their dysfunction
yet they leave us
none
there was no part of me
that could find the will
to protest
when the 18 year old
blue mohawk girl
with a screaming sticky-dirty baby
on her hip
and more metal in her face
than a tackle box
cut me off
in the u-scan lane
at the super market
all i could muster was pathos
as she began charging her dreams away
one baby food jar at a time
i know her
i’ve been her
either daddy didn’t love her enough
or
he loved her
a little too much
the perverse hand of ruin
has raised my skirt
too many times
i should know better
than to look the monster in the eyes
my nightmare
has become
the manner in which i make my living
and
that which makes me passionate about living
are in direct opposition
my vengeance takes the shape
of william blake’s
“Death on a Pale Horse”
go make yourself ready
soon
i shall burn the sky
i soften remembrances of you
so that i may live
but there are days
when the truth
of what you were
is flung from your grave
as the world
stages another revolution
terror rises from my earliest memories
my big sister
running with tiny me in her arms
to lock us behind a door
away from your belt
because i had toddled too near
your neatly pressed slacks
and
the day you walked to my swing set
to beat four year old me
mercilessly
for innocently repeating words
i didn’t understand
from your tongue
to grandma’s ears
you were kind enough
to slam me back down on the slide
when you were done
leaving me screaming atop the play mountain
the stream of urine
running all the way down between my legs
past my white sandal feet
the full length of the hot metal incline
then finally
dripping onto blades of grass
and it’s all i can do
to not drive deep into kentucky
with a shovel and lye
to liquefy your bones
alleviating me
and the earth
of what’s left of your weight
oh, fred
you’re perfect dead
a casket was the best place for you
it was the day after
a SWAT team extricated him from my house
i sat clutching a stranger’s hand for false comfort
an advocate from the women’s center
we chose seats in the middle of the crowded courtroom
i couldn’t bear to be close
when they brought him in shackled
the bailiff ushered him in
handcuffed and with leg irons
wearing a boone county jail uniform
it was black and blue striped
the same black and blue
as my eyes nose mouth and
swollen forehead
upon the judge mentioning the names involved in the case
the mad look on his face gave way to an absent evil rage
more helter skelter than manson was ever capable of
he looked at me with the eyes of drooling predator
envisioning the way the blood of my throat will gush onto his tongue
i saw him fantasizing about biting my nose off to spite my face breathing rapidly building his fury
as if he were about to enter a death match
the weighted chains were not enough
to stop him from breaking loose from the two guards who were holding him
the screaming began
you lying bitch
fucking cunt whore
i’ll fucking kill you
i’ll fucking kill you
before you ever leave me
fucking bitch
as he lunged over the divider
separating the courtroom
the sheriff sitting in the front row got to him first but was soon knocked off his feet by the bull
the two bailiffs then grabbed him
dragging him kicking and thrashing
through the inmate door
i then had to proceed to tell a room full of one hundred horrified and morbidly entertained onlookers about what he had done to me
i wept
nauseated from the concussion
explaining it was the result of my having asked for a peaceful separation for the sake of the children they weren’t taking well to his
bipolar parenting
chaos
and iron fist
he had thrown me down a flight of stairs
ran down after my tumbling body
when i crash landed
he picked me up by the throat
and bashed his forehead into mine
while explaining i would never leave him
i was thrown back to the hardwood floor
he sat on my chest
blowing cigarette smoke in my face
smiling
explaining in detail
how he would hunt me down no matter how far i ran and
kill me and everything i ever loved
he said he would kill me in front of the children so they would know what a bitch cunt whore their mother was
as he ran to grab a knife to slaughter me
ransacking the drawers
i ran back up the steps and grabbed my shoeless frightened children
keys and purse by the door
i ran outside
to the light
to the rest of my life
carrying my children out into the front yard
i began to yell for help as i dialed 911
he barricaded himself like the coward he is inside our broken home when he saw i had reached freedom
threats of killing anyone who walked through the door
promises to kill every cop on site
they devised a plan to trick him outside
asking me to call him
say i want to meet him in the diner on the corner so we could work things out
he fell for it
they took him down with a taser gun
at the corner of idlewild and route 18 carrying no wallet no keys just a four inch knife to gut me with
if only the boone county police had been willing to allow me to leave him with my children 25 domestic violence calls ago but they had refused
saying i couldn’t leave with my children
to just go sleep at my mothers
leave them there with him because they don’t get involved with custody
no fuck him fuck you uncaring law men
i wouldn’t leave my sons
i survived this monster
he only did nine days in jail
you see
in kentucky it is okay to nearly kill your wife
why heck, go on and do it, less paperwork for the police in the long run
being alive to tell this story to you
is
my fairy tale ending