The Things of a Child

Comfort is, not sitting in bed, ear pressed to wall

Listening to my drunk father shout down the hall

At my mother who yells back,

Challenges his verbal attack.

If she leaves, where will we go?

These are things I do not know.

Comfort is the smell of wet dog and hay

As I hide away with Grace for the day

Where father cannot find me to accuse

With the cruelest words he can think to use

Of poor manners, of embarrassment, stupidity,

Of being emotional and of all fault in me.

Comfort is bare feet running through the forest

Till a shrill whistle calls us back home to test

Our math, our history, spelling or speech

On a stool with the world just out of reach.

To do endless work and chores on the land

Planting, raking till blisters burst on my hand.

Comfort is not holding my breath as he drinks

One more beer as I wash dishes in the sinks

And hope to be invisible to his hateful eye

Or strong enough to at least not cry

Because tears unlock his full temper

And a belt gives me reason to whimper.

Comfort is not shivering in the cold

Because I could not do as I was told

And outside I was sent to sleep

With the dogs, goats and sheep

In the winter on musty blankets and dirt

And still somehow it's his words that hurt.

Comfort is not worrying that the gun

Is not in his room but out in the sun

That you will hear its hollow boom

And know a pet was lost to doom

For reasons that make no sense to a child

The truth being that his anger was riled.

Comfort is dancing in the rain with my siblings

Running, giggling, all free of his belittling's.

Till we are soaked down to our bones

And mother dries us with disproving tones

For water has soaked the porch and floor

But we laugh and would do it some more.

Comfort is not sobbing till I cannot breathe

After hours of his yelling without reprieve.

For whatever reason he found fit

To deny or kill, say to me or inflict

As much damage and punishment as he can find

Onto my impressionable and vulnerable mind.

Comfort is sneaking out to sleep in the sail boat

Climbing up in the dark with the blanket I tote,

The cats curl around me and purr in my ear,

Till crickets and warm love become all that I hear.

Early in the morning I will run back to bed

And to no one will a single word be said.

Comfort is not feeling emotionally numb

As lost and outcast as a bruised thumb

Isolated in the dark of the night till late

But feeling inside the house is a worse fate

So instead I sit and swing away the fear

Sing and sing until no pain feels near.

Comfort was found seldom as a kid

Lurking in pages of writing it hid.

And as an adult it is all that I know

Unless back to that house I let my mind go.

But, I find solace sometimes in looking back

And knowing that he can no longer attack.