Eddie's Version

When I was born,
I weighed seven pounds.
They passed me around
like a bag of chips.

When I was born, with my penis,
and eyes that cut like new metal,
my mother wanted a brown-eyed girl.
She told me she did.
Her mirror had broke.

Clasping the wooden bars of the crib,
which would later entrap by brother
and sister, I stared into the blackness
of the nursery, the void.

I was the fear out there,
the nothing of that room,
and decided then that, No,
I am not the darkness, just afraid.

I stared into the blackness
between my mother's legs
as she squatted down to pee.
This girl, I knew.
I was not afraid.
My father, where was he?
I said, Yes, that blackness there...
might as well be me.

I drew a penis on a pad
and left it to be found.
My mother showed it to me asking,
"Is this what I think it is?"

No, mother, it is only a finger.

I knew what she thought it was.
I would do the same with less.

When dad came home
he wanted my pennies.
I thought in terms of fairness.
I counted the coins in stacks and said,
No, this money is mine,
(I had already come this far alone)
and you will have to do the same with less.

I went to school and got pissed on.
They tore my football jacket.
They spoke of the itch,
but all I knew was pounding at it
with a balled-up fist.

I was barely a hundred pounds.
They passed me around like a baby.
But I still had those eyes,
and pierced into their puddin' heads.
Those boys, those girls, I knew them.

When I came home,
my father, with his cigarette
and beard, decided to teach me karate.

I knew just where to kick him.