EMPOWER Malaysia organised a writing competition for aspiring writers with the theme “YOUth of Tomorrow”. This is one of the top entries in the poems category, written by Ashley Marilynne Wong.
CW: Abuse
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One
Lose your temper.
Get mad at your two-year-old son for all those
Strewn toys on the floor.
Displace your pent-up exhaustion from work, stored at the bottom of your heart
Onto his bottom with that sharp slap.
Feel angry with yourself for being angry.
Rationalise away that rage.
When he comes crying for a hug, offering a placatory sorry, say,
‘You. Provoked. Me.’
And, thirty years later,
Open your door to a tear-stained, black-eyed wife, his, your slapped son’s.
Listen to her recounting how, the previous night,
Your son lost his temper
After he
Got home from work to an empty table
And gave her those tears and that black eye,
Echoing, afterwards, those authoritarian words,
‘You. Provoked. Me.’
Two
Feel ashamed, then justified.
Experience the rise and fall of that glint in your eye
When your now ten-year-old son
Goes into his room to find charred heaps of comic strips
Strewn dead on the floor.
Assume that strict, righteous look, the deadpan one
When he asks the anticipatory ‘Why?’
Tell him his comics were
Burnt for bad grades.
And, fifteen years later,
Hear rumours of how, him, your judged son,
Charred all her, his model fiancée’s, clothes
When she lost her last beauty pageant,
Telling her that those clothes were, as she bloody well guessed
And as you
Bloody well guessed,
Burnt for bad grades.
Three
Straighten your seven-year-old son.
Stroke his matted hair
Whilst stage whispering to your husband,
Deliberately loud enough for your son to hear,
‘Who does we have here? A little eunuch.
I wish he’d stop sobbing, toughen and grow up.’
When the boy
Weeps for his
Dead cat.
And, twenty-one years later,
From the guestroom window, look at and listen to
How, him, your toughened up son,
Stroke his wife’s tangled hair
Saying,
‘My sweet baby, stop acting like a baby.
Buck up. Stop crying.
Instead, start giving me a baby.’
When that poor girl
Wept over her, not your son’s, or so he claimed,
Dead cat.
Four
Stop your six-year-old boy from being a picky eater.
Cut his least favourite fruits into the smallest of chunks;
Mash all those veggies you know he wouldn’t eat.
When he discovers them in his lunchbox and points them out, picking at them,
Tell him,
‘It’s all in your mind.’
And, thirty years later,
Hear, at your dining room, over cups of sweet tea
How your daughter-in-law, his wife, your confused, deceived little boy’s
Found tons of text messages from his lover and confronted him
Only to be told,
‘It’s all in your mind.’
Five
Make sure your eleven-year-old son knows the world doesn’t revolve around him.
Be too busy working at your desk.
Ignore his wild whoops.
Interrupt him when he tries to tell you that he has
Finally made you proud
By getting his first ever 100 in English.
Say,
‘Shut up.’
And, two decades later,
Watch the video your daughter-in-law attached
Playfully, or actually, not so playfully
Captioned with two rows of loudly crying emojis,
In which, discovering that she’s going to have his, your silenced son’s
First ever baby,
Your daughter-in-law skips into his study
And attempts to relay the good news that she has
Finally made him proud,
Only to be talked over, to
Hear,
‘Shut up.’
Six
Remind your twelve-year-old son of his place, duty, responsibility.
Punish him so that he’d learn what would happen
To teenage boys who don’t want to help out around the house.
Beat him up black and blue. Starve and shove
Until he can’t even
Stand up.
And finally, two dozen years later,
Sob, in the hospital, because your daughter-in-law’s tears are too contagious.
Listen to her repeat over and over, how
Because she refused to have another baby,
He, your broken son,
Battered and entered her, smashed her spirit, broke her from the inside out
Until she couldn’t even
Stand up.