It Is 'Them' I Am Trying To Protect Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

I am not a ssshh...taker.
Cake baker.
Or a candlestick maker.
Nor am I one to ooze charm...
When my patience is tested,
By anyone thinking...
I'm an easy piece of meat to tease!
And there are folks in the world,
Who ask to be cussed out!
And...
I will oblige their requests.

I remember my Mom saying to me once,
'I don't care how strange you look.
I want my house cleaned when I come home.'

My parents were direct!
I wish 911 was around,
When my father use to just look at me...
With those eyes he had!
He would freeze me in this stare he had.
And I could not move!
I almost enjoyed my mother's whippings...
Just to escape from my father's silent stare.
He never laid a hand on my sisters and I.
He didn't have to.
My mother on the other hand...
Unleashed her punishment,
Like a category 5 tornado!
She was strict, loving...
And a crier when she whipped us!

~Why is she crying...again?
I'm the one in pain! ~

**Ma, tell Larry to leave me alone!
He gettin' on my nerves.**

~YOU...are going to spray some roaches!
And that's a promise! ~

God helped me fulfill that dream already.

Let's just say my childhood was just as dysfunctional,
As it was adventurous.
I was smoking and drinking with my parents,
When I was ten years old.

~Ma, did Daddy buy us any Budweiser? ~

'No! But there is some Manichevitz in the icebox.
And this time leave some for your sister! '

~...hmph! ~

We were 'special' children!
At least Reverand Branch thought so!
He had been the minister at Union Baptist Church.
That place is a different story.

I am not a ssshh...taker.
Cake baker.
Or a candlestick maker.
Nor am I one to ooze charm...
When my patience is tested,
By anyone thinking...
I'm an easy piece of meat to tease!
And there are folks in the world,
Who ask to be cussed out!
And...
I will oblige their requests.
Since they have no idea...
It is 'them' I am trying to protect.
And I do the best I can to chill,
Before any explosion occurs!