Why Didn't They Help Me??

In healthy families a strong parental alliance is a plus and leads to secure, happy, children.  In my family the very same quality led to neglect and abandonment. My parents are much more important to each other than I am, or ever was.  My mother could not, and would not, protect me from my father's ongoing sexual abuse.  I learned that I had to somehow manage on my own.  It left me out in the cold.  I had no where to turn but away from my parents if I wanted to survive.

And I so badly wanted to survive.

 I first wrote the following in the year 2000.  

I pull your faces toward me out of the past

My mother. 

My father.

 I touch your faces

 I look into your eyes 

 I pinch your faces hard

Trying to make you see me
Feel me

 I want you to feel my pain and anger.

 I yell in your blank faces,

 Why didn't you help me?!

 Don't you even see me?
Have you ever once seen me?
 I needed help!

 Your puzzled eyes gaze calmly at each other 

Are you amused by my intense feelings, Mommy? 

Is the half smile on your lips your way of blocking my feelings? 

 Is that how you keep me away?
My feelings are not real and so you are safe from them?

Your lips move,

Do you know what she's talking about Tatty?
No Mommy, we'd better go discuss it.

You turn together, the two of you, and walk in step to your bedroom to discuss what to do about me. 

You are on an important mission. 

A mission that excludes me. 

You will close the door and decide together what you will do
 By the time you come out

I'll be gone

Then you will go back to your room to discuss my leaving

Together

Forever 

 In step.