Heroes And Giants
Father said that compliance was the substance of life.
A concept not easily embraced by the mind of a boy.
Obedience from wife and child.
Mouth shut. Ears open.
Obey, respect, praise, pray.
When Mother was beaten and raped, I was mute.
Stuck, frozen in a land of terrifying monsters,
curling, black tendrils, razor sharp teeth, gnashing.
No heroes. No giants.
No-one
bigger than my father.
Belittled, afraid, angry, ashamed.
Locked in compliance.
Silenced.

She died.
I was ten.
She was blue.
A crumpled rag doll despatched to a hole
in the yard.
He cursed into glasses of malt and I cried,
but not loud.

Months became years, slowly turning the fear
into stirrings. A giant emerging.
Heroic, maybe.
I grew. He shrank. He drank. I grew.
I knew, by the love and the hate in my heart, he was lost.
He lay in his bed, still ranting,
spewing out desperate prayers
that sank in the void of his desolate stare.

I took Mother’s hand
and I never let go.
The pillow felt soft as we walked up the stairs.