Cw = Assault Rape and other Violence
The Poem That Was Here
The poem that used
To methodically live
blatantly if quietly
Here
Has been arrested on
Rape, Vandalism,
Salt – a salt – assault to a battery
Or some such
I know that I have a screw loose but so did he sometimes we would have a. Of a few hours when we get along with each other we would play Monopoly or
masturbate together on the balcony.
Everyone imagines that developmentally disabled people do not
Masturbate
[ … there is that disgusting filthy word again. Decades and decades after James Joyce used it, it is still seen as a slimy disgusting sticky word … ]
… eat fruit or have sex either one.
My mother, like me was developmentally disabled- they called it retarded back then. Men came from hundreds of miles around USA to do her.
They would pay her $0.50 each time they did it and they would pay me a dollar to keep quiet about it. I learned over the years that if I walked out into the main room as they were leaving I would get a dollar. Sometimes I’m writing about sensitive topics …
and I don’t want other people to hear it even nice people.
Someone told me in my seventh grade class that I should since I’m a developmentally disabled person that I should make sure and put the sun in every one of my poems this would make people happier. So here’s the part about
The Sun was shining and smiling on top of the shopping center as people came in for the big sale.
Cw – child abuse and other Violence
TOY STORE BOY
Inside the battering ram that is shopping a small boy not known to himself which is he had money for the things he sees on the highest shelf I shall so high that no one can reach it not even
His mother is out in the car shooting up.
He kept crying about Christmas gifts saying that last Christmas he got no gifts at all period His mother took him into the back seat of the station wagon which always has curtains on it and beat him silly like she usually does and then touched him lightly between his legs and said I’m sorry I’m sorry I did that – period he didn’t know why she touched him between his legs – – but it felt like you know when you put syrup on pancakes and eat them it tastes much better than when you just eat them plain because there’s no pancake syrup in the house.
Then she told him to go into the toy store and look around and see what he wanted period she had also asked him to do this last year period In fact last year he she had him do it five times period each time she went to see that tall man who handed her something after she gave him some money period
Last year when he went in the toy store several times she just simply drove away having for God and everything has done everyone can do that
She went back to visit the tall man and even though she had given him his money’s worth he wanted something more so she gave him this something more period
Cw- child abuse, other
Unnamable 123
Some people say that my mind is like a garden patch of radishes. I can only wish that I had green leaves that would turn sunlight into energy and carbon dioxide into oxygen
I was born at an early age that is to say
2 months premature
I was so small that my dad stuck me in a drawer in the bureau in his bedroom mother had died. Since your mother had died over and over and over and over.
I was told decades later that she died of the Bright’s disease of the kidneys and not in childbirth as I had long suspected
You go into a 7-Eleven when you’re really feeling lonely sometimes they will have like a hot dog for sale that’s already cooked or they’ll have a slice of pizza for sale that’s already cooked and you don’t have to make your own dinner because your therapist told you that you have to eat something you just have to eat something
I am very particular and peculiar when I buy razor blades. I try to get them on sale if I can because. Suicide slicing should not be expensive.
The children from this part of town. I went to a retreat once a Christian retreat with 500 children from my part of town. The leader asked us which one of us was from a broken home and no one raise their hand. Find me one Brave boy in the front row asking what is a broken home. It turned out later the day we discovered that everyone in the room except two boys came from a broken home but they just thought that was what home was that that’s home not a broken home it’s just home mom always gets beaten and dad always comes home drunk.
Cw- violence, , child abuse
RUDY
Rudy is reluctant to look up. Then he remembers that the lady at school who helps him the school says she’s not a doctor but she talks to all the kids that have problems. The lady at school that helps him said be brave enough to look up.
Ruby looked up
Then he was on the wooden floor face down with his father having pulled Rudy’s pants down, spanking him on his bare bottom with a wooden paddle that had holes drilled in it.
I told you boy never to look at me. I told you never look at me unless I gave you permission God damn it I’m going to beat you into next Tuesday
Rudy had tried to explain to the very pretty lady at school that if she looked up there would be a price to pay. But she said everybody has to try to grasp their own personal power. What is personal power? Somebody please tell me what is personal power? Is it anything like chocolate pudding for example.
The next day at school Rudy could not fit in his seat and finally after the teacher threatened to send him to the principal’s office he told her why he didn’t tell the whole story just tell her told her that is behind hurt quite badly so then she sent him to the office.
The principal wanted to send a patrol car out to our house but he didn’t know that my dad’s brother is the county sheriff so that never happened.
I did not go home that night I just wonder the streets cuz I knew if I went home dad would ask me if I said anything at school and if I looked up or if I lied to him I would get beaten again and I didn’t think I could take another beating today I could take one next week but not today
I cannot say that it’s easy out here on the street I just cannot I mean it’s not threatening because nobody beats you up and there’s really no food unless I walk all the way up to 73rd Street where that lady works it will give me a piece of pie if she infects she’s on her ship.
And then something very good happened and older boy from another school sat down with me and talk to me about what was happening and I found it easier to talk to him than to an adult then he gave me a couple of pills and he said take these and you’ll feel much better but he said don’t take him to you get over to the park lay down on the park bench and then take these pills and so I was so excited to take the pills I took them right then even though he told me not to and then I got kind of woozy I can’t explain it like I was really sleepy they made me really sleepy right away and I saw some wolves on the street but I’ve never seen wolves on the street before like that and then I remember hitting my head on the corner of a building just before I went to sleep on the sidewalk.
. I’m glad it was raining the next day because it woke me up. It did not wake me up early enough for me to get to school on time and my clothes were kind of wrinkled. A man in an old Cadillac came by and gave me a ride but then we didn’t really go to school he said it was going to be a vacation day so we drove somewhere else. We drove up into the mountains it was kind of fun and he touched me the way my dad touches me like I said before in another piece it was like when you put syrup on pancakes they taste much better than when you just have pancakes by themselves with no syrup like that I really liked that feeling and I wanted more of that feeling and he said I could have more of it
I wasn’t afraid do that he was going to hurt me until the next night when he said he wanted to do something even more sweet than syrup cuz I told him about the pancake thing.
That’s when he hurt me between my legs I can’t describe it exactly but it if I tried to tell you how much it hurt you wouldn’t believe me you would never believe me in fact
How can the same person be so nice buy you candy buy you dinner and then hurt you so badly I don’t understand it at least my dad is always mean and always drunk and he never does anything nice so he’s very what’s the word I want you can tell what is going to be like cuz he’s always the same.
Cw- abuse
HAPPINESS DELAYED
. I wrote a series of Five Poems on the same page because I thought if I worked on them and edited them for three or four months they would be ready to go out to magazines. I wanted at least one of the poems to be happy and the first four poems were really transgressive so the fifth phone I was under a lot of pressure to write it very happy. Or should I say to write it very happily so that the grammar police are happy or should I say happily the grammar police are happily happy
But then a man come up beside me I know it was a man because he said hello when I turned to say hello he stabbed me in the kidney I started bleeding and it hurt like hell I shouldn’t use such a trite phrases hurt like hell. And then I died of course I bled out and died I shouldn’t say something as trite as I bled out a9nd died I should say something more flowery and phantasmagorical maybe I could look up an unusual word and use it and figure out a way to use it in here while I’m dying.
Marc Isaac Potter (they/them) … is a differently-abled writer living in the SF Bay Area. Marc’s interests include blogging by email and Zen. They have been published in Fiery Scribe Review, Feral A Journal of Poetry and Art, Poetic Sun Poetry, and Provenance Journal. Twitter is @marcisaacpotter.
Angel Rust 