by Jennifer Bland

Created on: April 15, 2009

He isn't home, just us alone.

We are upstairs, playing.

Angry words can't reach us there.

A tiny, gingham rocking chair

Becomes a home,

To a tiny doll with golden hair.

She is me.

I am plastic skin; hollow within.

We pretend. We are laughing. We are so small,

My sister and I-

Broken, so we're never whole-

Stunted, so we're never tall.

Doors slam!-

Enter tension. Enter fear. Enter heaviness we sink in.

She is all alone downstairs, no match against the fiend.

We are smart, we know what happens.

It gets bad when there's been drinking.

Pounding panic, need to scream.

(Please don't yell, please don't start yelling.)

"It's ok," she hugs me, because I need her,

"just keep playing like we were."

She is older, just a little, but she lives to keeps me safe; Never lets me share the weight,

She carries. So unfair, a mini martyr, faking tough, because I need her.

She says:

We are alright, we will find an ocean, we are two-

I am trying to believe her.

But I am afraid, and I don't want to play,

So we can listen,

Hear the angry noise, things awry below our feet.

"Let's be quiet.
Let's be good. "

We listen, fine tuned sensors of attack.

Non-Provoking,

I'm a skittish, timid, baby mouse.

That listens, for the sickening sound,

Of snapping trap on fragile backs.

I don't want another ambulance, or hasty trip to grandma's
house.

Keeping eye on nearest safety phone, aware he brought his demons home.

'Cause the dishes in the sink are enough to bring the beast from out the man.

And the angry words creep up the seams,

To shake the walls and ceiling beams.

So we wait, uncertain silence, then-

Angry feet, mumbled swears, ascending stairs.

We are stupid, we are useless, the reason

For the scattered empty cans.

Because we play? Forget to put our toys away?

We are little, getting smaller-

Powerless observers in a house of breaking things,

Caged up people, we're all birds that cannot sing.

We are bullied into patterns, like the fabric

Of the chair-

Tiny flowers, muted hues;

I hate this ugly rocking chair, and stupid doll with ratty hair.

Gaining years,

I am growing, I am suffering from knowing.

I am coming out of sad,

I am guilty, I am older, but I still can't save this home.

So I'm learning to be mad.

But my new anger's like the trigger on a cocked and loaded gun

And before I can cease fire,

I am yelling, I am screaming, in a weak, pathetic rage.

Ignited by the striking force I'm seeing,

I'm combusting under pressure.

I am so angry, I have had enough, I am so tired,

Of living as this silent, stifled being.

But, I am now,

I grow, I understand,

In this house of rotted things,

In the echoes that we live,

Rotten mouths, sinking floors, shrinking walls,

Choking air, and broken wings, Trampled people-we are all

Stinging eyes, and ringing ears, and drying tears, and reaching arms,We're all learning to forgive.

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