Parental cop-out number nine:
"This is going to hurt me a lot mroe than it hurts you."
Pick your switch,
a good one,
you don't want me to make
a trip to the back yard.
I became a mighty switch-hunter.
The snap of the Sam Browne
on my shoulders left welts
like speed bumps on a HotWheels track.
Race me out of here.
The pinch on the inside of my bicep
excavated skin in the shape of a "V".
It would take forever
to remove a pound of flesh,
but she has time.
"I will not talk back,"
five hundred times.
My penmanship excellent
as I held two pencils
to script the bogus mantra.
Backhand slaps in public,
misbehavior recompense
or merely a frustration dump.
She did not want to be
my adopted mother
any more than I wanted to be
her adopted son.
So I chose not to be.
On a dank autumn day,
fourteen years of age,
I proved her right.
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Your poem touched me. I am sorry for the pain that inspired it, but feel privelidged to have experienced a tiny bit of your world.
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