The Swap

I don't think anyone is born to be orphaned,  
it's not part of the great plan -  
The day I was shipped, like a package, to live with my Great-Grandparents  
my Mother referred to me as 'trouble'.  
Well, being two I thought toddlers were supposed to be trouble -  
not that it matters anymore.  
I've always been that sort of person,  
someone falls in the street and I'd pick them up and invite them for tea,  
too trusting and too giving and too fucking forgiving  
and I loved her, like the Mother she should have been  
she was unreliable, she doesn't forget  
but I'm expected to.  
I'm expected to erase days she forgot to pick me up from school, or cook food, or how not to break my skin.  
It was never made easy to love her  
and yet my short, tiny Grandmother who never had my attention  
loved me more.  
I was always Daddy's girl, or at least the apple of my Great-Grandfather's eye, as he stood strong and tall like the Grand-father clock in the hallway.  
I was ever ruining my white, clean clothes,  
obsessed with horticulture and woodworking  
and music.  
The entire world was encouraged at home, I was taught how to feed myself and heal myself all from the comfort of the garden, we built a woodwork shed thanks to oil lantern light in Winter.  
My Grandmother encouraged my music, a flute, an oboe, a recorder (later to mysteriously disappear when after three years I still could not play) and classical, the classical beyond classical until all I could do not to sing the day long was sleep or eat.  
She gave me a gift no one else could  
and yet you,  
my unfortunate Mother, arrived like a bomb in my tranquil haven  
with your back twisted up like a broken pull toy  
and demands of my youthful services for care-work, will-writing and everything else in between.  
The dream was dead and with it was my visitation rights to haven,  and to them. Nan would come over and help me do the washing, or she'd cook for me. Grandad brought me a step ladder  
so I could reach the side tables better.  
I remember the last time I was childishly sick,  
I'd cooked fish wrong,  
and I was ten.  
Mum slept on the sofa, Television on, old plate at her side. I tripped on the third step running down stairs,  
smashed my head somewhere down  
and passed out in a pool of my own vomit.  
I was scolded badly for it,  
and scrubbed with a loofer in the bath  
until my skin was raw and welted...