The rage of an inner child

I don't know why I have these
But I have my cps case files
I have documentation I shouldn't
It fills three totes, stacked high
And sometimes I read them, ever so carefully
I read the way adults with too much power
Those gluttonous ticks filled with blood
The power pulsing, almost bursting their skin
I read their callous words carefully
I try to remember these exact moments
The places frozen in that dark time
That they speak about with such conviction
When an animal is hurt or trapped
We tend to not blame them for lashing out
But when a child screams in rage masked pain
We punish and cut them them down
Molding them to change them to match us
We hold them down while they fight
All their neurons aflame in survival response
We fight, flight, flee and offer appeasement
In a split moment our brain chooses a path
Our neurons burning it deep in our minds
Some of us switch between these responses
But not I, I've always been a fighter
Born with teeth made for tearing apart flesh
A mouth built to curse, scream and verbally defend
Hands that have no qualms with forming a fist
But these adults expected adult behavior
From a child in the pit of pure survival
I read these paragraphs even now
The pages floating in my mind
The words swirling and smoking on the pages
Some of them are stained with coffee
And when ever I open their confinement
I am sent back to their offices
A small child sat in too big of a chair
Swallowing the blood from my lip
My fingers wrapped so tightly into fists
My nails cut deeply into my palm
They would ask me over and over again
Why did you do it?
why did you behave this way?
why did you say that to them?
why can't you just behave?
why can't you just be normal?
why can't you just move on?
Always in the same tone of disapproval
Of admonishment out of faked caring
I was never enough for those in power
I was never the good girl they wanted
I was hulk, stupid with anger
Not yet having found clarity in it
Hulk in a body too frail to fight the world
I remember my small fists protecting my siblings
When no one protected me, I protected them
I don't know what to do with these pages
Full of inadequate words from the perspective
That will never understand my anger
And she is still here in my brain
Running down that survival neuron pathway
Setting my mind ablaze in a continuous loop
I fight differently now but I still fight
I'll always fight, fueled by the rage of my inner child.