wash it off
I must have been young
when I learned
the proper steps
how to wash my hands
to keep clean from germs.
in pre-school theey said,
"sing your ABCs"
"Happy Birthday twice"
but it wasn't anyone's birthday,
and ABCs were boring.
i sang twinkle, twinkle
little star
how i wondered
where and why and how -
can't the universe
know better
than to punish children
who are innocent
by giving them to parents
who hurt them?
twinkle, twinkle
little star
children only go so far
little hearts and little minds
cannot handle cruelty's lies
twinkle, twinkle
little star
what would punished parents fix?
my siblings never
saw the pain
the need for staying clean
i protected still
kept them neat so
he'd not scream
they never saw him
touch my mother
i would reassure
that the noises in the
room next door
were nothing of concern
and even after everything
he let the virus grow
he'd planted so early that
I'd failed to even notice
never stood a chance
never had a moment to
recant the tales that
he told to them.
horrid deeds, feed them poison
break the things
they work to gain
break their will
manipulate, take everything
to make them change
behavior to behave your way
and all the while
lay the blame on
someone else,
talk and train their tiny brains
to hate, repeat
the things you say
play the game
dissociate the damage
from the virus, take
the keys from the ignition
put them in the hands of
the main victim
of your violence.
this is how he did it.
never *had* to buy their silence.
put a gun up to their heads
spit the hatred and the filth
tell them line by line
lies and stories that you built.
and in the end it worked.
it works, I should say.
but no one else could see it.
no one knew he hurt
her in that way but
me. so they believed the words.
Viruses are dangerous.
but people?
we're far more so.
we get power to decide
to protect or let die
and even with the former
we can doom a person's soul.
because I protected them
i didn't let them see it
how he'd hit her and beat
how he'd yell and he'd scream
i kept them in a bubble,
and I thought it made me good
as a six year old big sister
like age-six big sisters should
and instead, you wanna know?
wanna hear what happened?
with no memories of him
as bad guy, mom the victim
he hijacked the habits
he got through the firewalls
undeveloped mainframes
easily bypassed and hacked
straight into their brains,
turning perpetrator 'victim'
and innocent to 'cruel'
he brainwashed with accompanying actions, words, and tools
results forever devastating
"mom" now equals "fear"
it equals memories of
threats in harm and violence
and years of childhood trauma,
two decades each of pain
he flipped the script
made "mom" a word
synonymous with "witch."
if only it were easy
to wash our hands of sin
and our brains of the hurt
that takes control of the center
a virus in motion, growing
spreading, resistant to
treatment;
nothing to do
but manage
the symptoms
and hope
(and pray)
that one day
they will wake.