https://youtu.be/68IL8F1Fu1s

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Once,
There was a poor little boy
Not poor in coins,
But in comfort.
Not poor in food,
But in love.

He had a mother
Who held a bottle
Tighter than her children,
Who traded bedtime stories
For silence
And babysitters.

She didn’t know
The sitter wore a smile
Like a wolf wears fur
Pretty, but hiding teeth.

The poor little boy
Was left in that house
Again
And again
And again
His body learning
What his mind couldn’t name.

In school,
When the word “sex” was said,
He tilted his head
Like a puppy chasing a sound.

“what’s that?”
He asked, honest,
Small.

The class laughed.
A boy yelled:
“when a penis goes in—”
And the teacher turned,
Just in time
To hear the poor little boy say,
‘oh, I’ve done that heaps of times at home.’

The room froze.
The teacher didn’t.
She pointed to the corner,
Not the pain.
Punished the words,
Not the wound.

He grew into a teenager
With shame in his bones.
Carrying hands
Taught by trauma,
Not by consent.

He touched someone wrong
because someone had touched him worse

The school system failed him, just like his mother failed him.

He grew up
But never out
Of the ache.

Years passed,
He wore cologne,
Wore muscles,
Wore confidence
Like armor
Over an abandoned child.

He became a man
Who never let women leave
Not because he loved them,
But because he feared empty rooms.

He cheated not for thrill,
But for survival.
If one left,
Another would still be there
To say
He mattered.

But he didn’t believe them.
Not really.
Because how do you trust
A kiss
When your first touch
Was betrayal?

He told women he loved them,
But didn’t know what love was.
Just that it sometimes came
With skin
And silence,
And left
Without warning.

He hurt women
The way he was taught love feels.
Then hated himself
For becoming the echo
Of someone else’s crime.

He’d lie awake sometimes
Beside a warm body,
Colder than he’d ever felt.
Wondering
If the boy inside him
Was still screaming
In the corner
Of that first classroom.

Wondering
Why nobody came.

He tried therapy.
Walked into the office
With trembling hands
And sat down
Like a guilty child.

He said,
“I don’t know who I am
When I’m not being touched.”

He said,
“I think the first woman
Who loved me
Was trying to erase me.”

He said,
“sometimes I don’t want to exist—
But I’m too stubborn to leave.”

The therapist said,
“you were hurt.”
He shook his head.
“no.
I was made that way.”

And still,
Some nights,
He dreams of the sister
Who said “I got you”
And didn’t.
He dreams of the girl
He hurt,
Who looked at him
Like he was the monster
Under her bed.
And he wonders
If the monster
Had a mother
Who drank herself numb.

The poor little boy
Never really left.

He just grew taller,
Learned to flirt,
Learned to fake charm
And hide the rot.

But when the lights go off
He’s still there,
Knees to chest,
Waiting in silence, for someone
To come back,
And mean it.

But in the silence, all the things we didn’t learn, remained.

Because all he ever wanted
Was for someone to stay
After they saw
Everything.