by Gabriella Samms

Created on: December 03, 2008   Last Updated: December 28, 2008

A little girl just nine years old would hold her ears at night

When daddy beat the brothers who would not put up a fight

She'd hear the screams of painful fists that slammed across their heads

And wished to God that daddy would just let them go to bed

Yet, fights went on for hours; at least it seemed they did

Memories that never should invade the mind of kids

When mornings came the bruises showed and silence filled the rooms

No proof of any violence there 'cept for the wooden broom

The wounds, they'd heal, though slowly, and brothers, side by side

Would wait for evening hours when their dad came back inside

He'd take a break between the nights he'd spend making them sore

By slapping, kicking, hitting them, sprawled crying on the floor

Some nights were purely physical; the others, spoken words

That tore much deeper than the wounds that no one but them heard

Soon the brothers grew to men; the dad, the wife divorced

And though dad left, the pain he shed continued on its course

Its damage changed the way these men have lived for fifty years

Sometimes that girl of nine years old still sees their desperate tears

Of course, she too, is grown now, and suffered through the years

The wounds that bled so freely then are scars that barely peer

Yet words then shouted by their dad make all of them still weak

A normal family never was, and now could never be

For scars fade way but shouted words can kill a family

Kept hidden deep inside their souls for no one else to see

When someone says they love you, then tell you that you're dirt

When someone says you'll never be a person filled with worth

When value of a human being is laughed at in your face

Unlike the scars that fade from you the words stare in your face

They change the way you could have been; they change your hope at life

Those words, their wounds remain today, and stab with all their might

That nine year old who heard those boys be beaten in the night

Was just their little sister who was scared to death with fright

Yet, she was spared the beatings on those nights the boys could not

Their screams of pain from gross abuse could never be forgot

But she would trade those beatings with her brothers if she could

If it could make her brothers feel that they are truly good

But nothing she can say will help erase what dad had said

Instead she lays awake at night tears filling up her head

Someday she hopes her brothers learn to walk away from pain

The kind that tore them into bits built up inside their brain

Although she know the task is hard for scars will always heal

For what is said can't be erased; the trust is what it steals

And that old saying "Sticks and stones Will break my bones", is true
But words will always hurt the ones that they are spoken too
So watch before you speak of hate; be careful what you say
Or it could change a person's life In just a single day.

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