Toxicity. A Poem

Toxic

Your need for attention

Always grasping for affection

Too many times to mention

Clingy, all night and day

Looking for pity

What do you want me to say?

That I feel sorry for you?

I don’t anymore

You knew what you did

When you walked out that door.

Goodbye. A Reluctant Poem from the Daughter of an Addict

A stain on my life

Manipulator

A hurricane of pain and strife.

Phone calls all hours of the day

I don’t know what you expect me to say.

You never change

You’ve yet to grow.

I needed you,

Don’t you know,

Don’t you know?

I am not your caretaker

I am not your friend

I am not your social worker

This is the end.

I am not your secretary

Calling around

Messaging your friends

Everytime you fall down.

I am not your babysitter

I am moving on

You’ve made me bitter.

So long

So long.

Chapter 5 Daddy

Jenna had waited for the man to get far enough away from the house before popping the grate off from the wall. She had used the end of her zipper clasp and fit it into the flathead screws that held the metal cover onto the wall to get into the wall, now she twisted each pointed end of the four screws from inside her hideaway. One by one the screws released from the wall and clattered to the floor. She sucked her breath in each time, half expecting the man to walk through the door at any moment. She squeezed herself through the rectangular hole, the soft wispy fabric of her windbreaker caught on the metal edging of the hole and a thin strip tore clean off of the jacket. She stopped to pick at it quickly but left it when she saw lights flashing through the crack under the back door. Hastily, the grate was shoved back in its place, she pocketed the screws.

Jenna crawled on the gritty floor over to the door and listened, her eyes wide, everything was completely silent until boom! A reverberation of thunder sounded throughout the house. Golden light flashed under the door again, followed shortly by another deafening clap. She jumped away from the door, not realizing it was the storm until a moment after. All of her bravery slipped away as she sat, shaking, tears raced from her pale green eyes. Her whole body shook violently and she breathed deep heaving breathes, her heart sputtering and clenching. “Oh God, please get me out of here.” She cried for her bed, with her Moana blanket and matching pillowcase mum just bought her for her eighth birthday. She cried for the smell of breakfast each morning, scrambled eggs and jelly on toast, her favorite. She cried for her mommas’ hands, rubbing her back to sleep each night for as long as she could remember. She thought of her sisters, Daphne would be freaking out by now, Cloe would be worried but forever complacent and optimistic that the cops would do their job. Izzy wouldn’t have noticed anything had changed, she was just over one year old. Jenna sucked in air hungrily until her heart slowed. She thought of her dad, who had died 3 years ago, and she pictured him there, sitting beside her in the dark. She closed her eyes and imagined him, in his old blue t-shirt with the one pocket that always had a sticky note in it to remind him of what momma had requested from the store. “Help me Daddy.” She whispered, salty tears gathering on the edge of her lips. She pictured his short brown hair, cut military style because he never outgrew the habit. His smile big and wide and genuine. Warmth flooded her as calm replaced panic within her little body. She wiped the tears away with the corner of her jacket and stood up for the first time in days. There wasn’t enough head room in the wall space to move around on foot, she hadn’t noticed how sore her legs were until she tried to use them. She wobbled for a step and her tummy growled loudly. Her eyes met the deadbolts on the door in dismay. She knew by the sounds she had heard when the man left that there must be a matching row of locks on the other side. She pulled on the door knob slowly, millimeters at a time, afraid of what was on the other side. The solid barrier gave no hope of peaking through any windows. The door held fast, stuck. “Dangit!” She swore under her breathe. Turning, she saw her next option. She settled on plan B and pushed the plywood inner door aside, it moved without a fight and swung open into a small dated kitchen. The cabinets were a muddy tan color, the tile a chocolate brown with occasional red square thrown in. A round bowl-shaped yellow ceiling light hung precariously by a single brown wire in the center of the room. Besides a large black microwave, a black metal chair and a few dog toys, the space was empty. She opened the first cupboard she saw, the hinge squealed in protest. Six boxes of cereal greated her. Coco krispies, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch. All breakfast cereal winners in her book and apparently the man had a sweet tooth because the next two cupboards held a mountain of junk food. She grabbed a Nutty Buddy Bar and a handful of beer pretzels and stuffed her pockets full. Without stopping to think she opened the refrigerator, and greedily drank from a bottle of orange juice. Drops of tart liquid ran down her chin as she chugged. With a sigh of satisfaction and crazed thirst finally quenched, she replaced the bottle in its spot on the top shelf and moved on with a higher sense of urgency now that she had something in het stomach, she could think straight.

Her eyes grazed around the lower level of the two story home. The open floor plan led the L shaped kitchen directly to the living room where a beat up fawn colored couch and a new leather Laz-y boy chair sat a few steps away from a small flat screen TV. A trio of remotes rested on the arm of the chair, ready for their charge to come home and watch his nightly Frasier.

She made her way quickly to the front door and found herself facing only one lock that hung open on its ring. Her hand gripped the doorknob to leave when a loud rattle came from behind her and the backdoor crashed shut.

There are good men

I’m always hearing about men, and their shortcomings, their blunders, their incapacity to do things woman can do like care for their own children. I hear about how bad at diaper changes they are, they never wake up at night with the baby, they don’t think about anything but themselves. Sports and cars occupy 90 percent of their brains and when they stay home with the kiddos they are letting then run rampant through the house with no regard for safety or the mess left behind. They never change the toilet paper, they need lists attached to the diaper bag that includes “don’t forget the baby” (an actual real thing you can buy, a manly diaper bag that notes not to forget the baby.)

Let me say this, men are not incompetent. They can be good fathers, good husband’s, attentive lovers, hard workers and they can do them interchangeably and when needed just like woman can. Their methods may be different, their itinerary of spending a day with the kids might look different than yours, their go to soothing techniques might vary, with their useless nipples and all, they have to do things differently to get baby to sleep. There are good men. Lots of them. Take a moment to think about the father’s and cousins, uncles and grandfathers in your life, the beat friend that acts in the place of a father, your boss who plays Santa every year for the office kids. There are men who faught in wars and came back mentally bruised and broken and still got their selves together enough to raise their children well. There are millions of step dad’s who took the place of a neglectful man and owned that position as a father 100%. They exist. I can prove it, I have one. I know many. They rock their babies to sleep, they know when to pour you a glass of wine. They tell dad jokes and handle things with a side of humor and gruff voiced disapline.

Don’t discredit them, don’t brush them aside as unable just because some of the men you know may have been unwilling to step up. When your significant other tries to do something like change his newborn babies diaper, don’t take over and roll your eyes, don’t overpower them because they might not be adjusting to parenthood as quickly as you’d hope. Help them, let them try, teach them, let them teach you. Have a little faith.