I Remember

I remember ants in Nana's garden,

that formic acid an early sting,

more formative than you might think,

perhaps those biting bugs helped me harden.

Wouldn't be long until those moments were gone,

existing only as freeze frames in my mind palace,

more like a memory of a memory than something dynamic,

the recollection of a time when I felt I belonged.

​

I remember the man who kicked his dog across the street,

and the knife that he pulled when my stepdad challenged,

and him running back to the safety of our cabin,

the window shattering and the glass at our feet.

That experience should've taught me a lesson,

that your home's no safer than the streets that surround it,

an illusion created by the locks that we have fit,

like the placebo effect of a charlatan's blessing.

​

I remember the arguments in the kitchen,

begging them to stop from behind a baby gate,

and the way the arguments would only elevate,

the more time that they spent drinking.

I never felt endangered on rides home at night,

in spite of the driver, as drunken as they were,

the laughs and the smiles down the road felt pure,

although I knew how soon there'd be a fight.

​

I remember him leaving and how much I cried,

I knew somehow where things were headed,

his leaving, the match by the can of unleaded,

didn't cry like that again until the day that she died.

The fights didn't stop after the separation,

like a soap's changing cast with recycled stories,

by my teens the trauma had started to bore me,

my heart worn down by the years of abrasion.

​

I remember the knock and the shock and the tears,

feeling everything I'd cared for was now nonexistent,

and even at that I didn't realise the extent,

The culmination of all of my fears.

The fire inside me had burned down to embers,

lost in this world without the guidance of mother,

it's been 6 and half years and I've still not recovered,

I try to forget, but I still remember.

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