Why Did You Stay?

You wonder why you stayed so long,
as if your life’s a daytime film
about a woman married to
a man who slaps her just for laughing at  
another man’s remark.
 
Was I abused? you think, still now  
at thirty-one, remembering  
the dinner plate smashed on  
your brother’s head.
He asked for it, you think,
for talking back to dad.
 
You won’t talk back, ‘cause you’ll be dead:
rejoinder in the kitchen as
you look down at
the scuffed carpet, memorising detail.
 
But dads say stuff like that,
especially to teenage sons.
He also said he loved you more than once,
you ingrate little shit.
 
You stayed until the age of twenty-nine:
didn’t that mean anything?
How ungrateful can you be,
paying your pittance each week
and living off his charity
(living in your filth because
you’d never leave your room,
were never taught to clean yourself
or any independent skills).
 
Dads that work and cook for you
are godsends, Little Shit.
Be thankful you weren’t raped or drugged.
And if to meals  
your mother sometimes wore
a bathing suit that showed her snatch,
you see why she was quite the catch,
or would have been
when eighteen and still firm.
 
Your father had good taste in flesh,
and if his wives were both damaged,
both came to him when young and fled
from dads who looked like him,
you know what’s said:
a girl who hates her daddy makes
a perfect mate in bed.
 
But so you diagnose
the crass male psychology
and ponder in your selfish way
if you deserve to join the ranks
of Those Who Were Abused.
 
Sewing disparate memories, like when
you asked why restaurants  
don’t have games for older kids.
Because if older ones act out
you take them out  
and beat them to a pulp.
 
Millennial, go count  
each blessing of your time
and know that life was other than
the luxury you crave.
 
And if he put his hands on you
above a running bath
as if to push you underneath
unless you shut your fucking mouth,
and if a certain something clicked
inside your teenage brain,
and made you want
a man who’d choke
you like your father did,
you’re just your mother’s son.
 
And if you’d like  
to sidestep victim blame,
well... why DID you stay?