Cigarettes, piss stains, and coffee tar lungs

Remnants from my high life

Before the summers churned and my bones cracked

Before I shed so much salt from my eyes

I remember his leather couch

Counting the grey hairs on my father's head

And he told me, "Each one of those is from every time you hit me."

I'd give him a four year old punch for good measure

The pastel on the sidewalk and earth pine scent

Jumping the ditch when we got in trouble

Crawling up the stairs when too tired to walk

Only things from my childhood brain

Purple arched across my knee

Another scrape, a few tears

But the yellow and red across my cheek

Stored in the recesses of youth once forgotten

I hear big girls don't cry but age is just a number

Bricked up in my loss of memory mind

The tears don't start until I know

The fight was taken from the kid