Lullaby

I don't want to write this poem

I was born in the middle of the night
In the middle of March
I don't remember it
But I should
I should be able to remember the smell of disinfectant
My mother's screams
The chill of the air
The warmth of the Doctor's hands
And the pain of my first spanking like
Just being born was a punishable offense

I don't want to write this poem

What I do remember is third grade
Christmas time
And lying in a giant bed with three of my cousins
The smell of sweat
My oldest cousin's hands down my pants
Too much wood in the stove
An RC car that wouldn't work
A red typewriter
And thirty pairs of eyes judging me two weeks later
When I returned to school

I don't want to write this poem

I remember playing games
Most with an element of chance
Ours was no different
If someone found out
We lost
If not
We kept playing
And we kept playing
Sometimes with two players
Sometimes three
Most of the time four
But numbers never meant much to me
What meant the most was the taste of salt
The firmness in my tiny hand
And a cloudless sky
In which an uncaring god looked down on us like a pedophile

I don't want to write this poem

I wish I could remember what virginity felt like
I wish I could remember being pure
But what I remember is an uncircumsized penis
And wondering why it was so different than my own
I remember a sickening wetness in my pants while speaking to my late grandmother
And I remember puberty
My oldest cousin calling me a fag
And not seeing him since

I don't want to write this poem
But I do want to tell this story
For the cathartic numbness to quiet the pain of the child locked within me
And that child wants to write this poem
To be his lullaby
Not for applause
Or for scores
But for a thousand voices in a harmony of understanding
And he will sleep
And when he sleeps
He will dream
And the molestation of his childhood
The splintering of the self
The questioning
The questioning of the questioning
Will be lit with daylight
And the nightmares will fade with the darkness
Because monsters only have power if they have someplace to hide
And I'm sick of hiding them in closets of bitter heartbreak
I'm sick of jumping at shadows
And pipes clinking in the dark
This lullaby will be his salvation
And scary stories will vanish in the night

So hush little baby...
I've said all the words.