I am

I am 5 years old.
I can’t draw very well
so I carefully trace around my own fingers.
I want to draw red fingernails
but mother took my red pencil away
so the fingers stay bare…
that’s OK ,they look like a mans hands anyway.
I can hear mother talking with her friends,
their voices tinkling like delicate yet continuous
chimes that you can’t ignore. I start another hand,
but am interrupted, “What are you drawing dear?”
“Monsters,” I say, and a short silence is broken
by my mothers tinkly laugh.
“Overactive imagination, you know. It’s alright,
she’s starting school soon.”
Mother doesn’t like my drawings.
She says there are no monsters, I must be dreaming.
But when I close my eyes at night
and monsters crawl slowly all over me,
I am awake.

I am 8 years old.
I wake up in blood.
“Normal,” my mother says. And normal it is,
I keep quiet. My reflection in the metal
is ugly and distorted. I ignore it and draw
long red lines down my arm with my new pencil.
I close my eyes and listen to the wind…
like quiet breathing, in and out.
They look at me strangely, whisper. Mother looks at me too,
warnings flash in her eyes as she turns away and the wind sighs.
“Nasty accident, you know. It’s alright, she’ll be more careful.”
And I am.
I wash my sheets, wear long sleeves.

I am 12 years old.
Mother has cooked me dinner,
but I cannot eat it. I feel like gagging
and my lips clamp firmly closed. My fingers
stay folded on my lap like thin white sticks.
“Don’t you want it?” Someone says. I stare at my plate,
drops of fat ooze from the long rolls of meat like tears. “No”.
Concerned eyes blink at my mother,
and somewhere a chime dances in the wind.
“Picky eater, you know. It’s alright, she’s just not hungry”.
But I am.

I am 15 years old.
I am lying in a small dark place
where there are no monsters.
My hands stay folded across me…
wrists down of course. It is very quiet
but far away I hear people sobbing. Somehow, I see my mother…
dabbing dry eyes and clinging to someone.
“So tragic, you know. It’s alright, she’s in a better place now”.
And I am.