The Poetry Marathon

I got a baby sister when I was four

But like a lot of former “only children” do

I didn’t want her for very long or to have any more.

Now she is my very best friend and I am hers, too.

We moved away to a tiny town

Into a tiny house while daddy built ours.

In a cow pasture on the road two lots down,

Grown green and alive with wildflowers.

My favorite show was Puffnstuff.

I watched it every day.

Jimmy, with his British voice, seemed tough

Because of his magic flute, that’s what I chose to play.

Daddy didn’t hurt me anymore after this year.

Whether he started on my sister then, I am not very clear.

A year passed by and I turned three

My mom finished school and stayed home

Mema went back to work and left me

With a crazy woman whose mind tends to roam.

She beat me once with a leather strap

For failing to write the alphabet

My whole life had changed, i was in a trap

Missing Mema’s love, stuck in my mother’s net.

She took my daddy back this year

Wanting no longer to be alone,

He was not a nice person, I fear.

We were better off when he was gone.

She was with child and next year my sister came

They moved us away from my Mema and changed the whole bloody game.

When I was two, I learned to read,

In my hands, I always carried a book.

I remember the words, “Growing like a weed”

Even though my mother was an awful cook.

I spent weeks in the hospital, unexplainably sick

Till they found I was allergic to milk.

So the things I ate weren’t for me to pick,

No dairy, no cheese, no ice cream or that ilk.

I must have been happy, I don’t recall bad

My Mema loved and spoiled me

I don’t remember even seeing my Dad,

What’s to be, they say will be.

My mother took me to a doctor because she said I read too much.

He told her to let me be, it was she who was out of touch.

Only twelve months ago, I was born

I don’t remember much, of course,

Nothing of the onesies and diapers I’d worn,

Nothing of my teddy or rocking horse.

All I know is what I was told,

Like my mother divorced my dad.

At the time, that was considered bold,

But I’m sure that it made me very sad.

We moved in with my grandparents then,

Because momma was only sixteen.

Her church insisted she’d committed a sin,

If she’d not left him, what might have been?

They made her finish school for her future, you see,

And her mother, my Mema, became mother to me.

My registration went to my spam folder and got buried beneath all manner of insanity.

Then it wouldn’t accept my password so i reset it 5 times and here i am!

I’m not much of a blogger obviously, just kinda checking to see if it works. Good luck, everybody!  I think it will be fun.

Susan