When I Was Nine

 

I have brown hair and freckles on my face

 

I have blue eyes so big they look out of place

 

I am scrawny and have knobby knees too

 

I love art class, the playground and petting zoo

 

I don't understand all of the things I see

 

I just know that I don't want to be me

 

I hold my candle angel tight and I pray

 

I beg God over and over, make it go away

 

I was told once that my mother is dead

 

I heard people say my Daddy's sick in the head

 

I watched them pack up all my Grandma's stuff

 

I remember she yelled "I've had enough!"

 

I don't know what the reasons all were

 

I cry like a baby cause I'm missing her

 

I found her sweater on the back of a door

 

I smell it until it won't smell anymore

 

I am home alone and the youngest child

 

I watch my brother and my sister run wild

 

I hide in my closet whenever I am scared

 

I hid the whole day, but nobody cared

 

I got beat with the belt today, I am nine

 

I know these welts and bruises are all mine

 

I never get to eat good meals like before

 

I don't know why Daddy won't go to the store

 

I got mad when Santa didn't come this year

 

I guess cause there wasn't a Christmas tree here

 

I know more than nine years should know

 

I don't know things to be on my own though

 

I can already tell when grown ups are lying

 

I sneak around them and I keep on spying

 

I don't like the summer cause it's not so fun

 

I heard Daddy's dumping me off to someone

 

I hope it's the farm with the kitten's in the hay

 

I don't like the games some other families play

 

I hate it when grown ups fake being all nice

 

I hear honey and sweetie and sugar and spice

 

I am very shy and I just don't wan't to talk

 

I watch the other kids stand there and gawk

 

I hear them saying "The baby can't speak"

 

I watch them run off and screaming "Freak!"

 

I get free lunches when I go back to school

 

I try my best and I follow every single rule

 

I learned how to clean and sew a button on

 

I can do laundry now and I rake the lawn

 

I teach myself all of the new things I learn

 

I still don't know how to make toast not burn

 

I am having my birthday soon and turn ten

 

I hope I will be a lot more grown up by then

 

©S. Austin Vincoski