Hush Little Baby: A Poem
Hush Little Baby
This poem is dedicated to the too-young children of abuse that I worked with over the years. I wrote it by taking the original nursery rhyme and adding to it to change its meaning as abuse changes childhood.
Hush, little baby,
Quell that wailing
Before daddy gets mad
Before Mama wakes up
Stare silently at the spot on the wall
Behind your crib
Where your head chipped the plaster
Last time you were thrown
don't say a word
To the doctors who ask
About the broken bone
To the teachers who talk
About the broken home
To the children who beat
Your broken soul
With more than sticks and stones
Mama's going to buy you
A treat to make up for it all
She’ll spend her last dollar on you today
And then sell your growing body
For a dime bag tomorrow
Chip off the old block even before
Your first chipped baby tooth falls
Out of your pretty little head
A mockingbird
Reverberates forever in your ear
Tells you that you’re worthless
Laughs at your dreams and your goals
If that mockingbird won't
Stop picking at your soul
Your sense of self is going to disappear
And all that will be left is a hardened shell of someone
Who doesn’t even know how to
Sing
Mama's going to buy you
A million things over the years
Apologies for the daddy that hurt you
Apologies for the men that came later
Apologies for the things that she did all in search of
a diamond ring
And a misguided chance at her own happiness.
If that diamond ring
Doesn’t come
She won’t see it as a blessing
She will see it as a terror
And she will blame you
Hate you
Hit you
Hurt you
You will watch as your open heart
turns brass.
As everything in you turns to steel.
You will become cold, turn off
Stuff the pain of Mama’s mistaken love way down deep
Inside a body that is growing older
Mama's going to buy you a looking glass.
She is going to teach you to wear make-up
She is going to teach you to lie still
To stare at the ceiling
To smile when what you really want to do is cry.
If that looking glass gets broke,
You need look no further than the person standing over you
To see how it is that you are supposed to behave
You are your mother’s sins
Her coldness is your chill
Her mistakes are your history
Mama's going to buy you
A thousand things that you don’t want
And very few of the things that you actually need
And then she is going to hate you for your
Lack of appreciation
a billy goat,
she will call you
referring to your stubbornness
because she doesn’t know
that you’re just stubbornly trying to survive
in a world where the chances of survival are slim
If that billy goat
Can stay strong
You may have a chance
Get out from underneath the weight of this
Childhood horror story
And make a real life for yourself
But if it
won't pull,
again and again and again
you will bear the burden of this tale for all eternity
you will start to crumble
you will start to fall apart
Mama's going to buy you a cart and bull
And you are going to think that she has finally come
To save you
To give you some help in getting through
This miserable existence that she has set up for you
If that cart and bull
Seem real
Wait
She isn’t going to save you
She is going to run you over
She is going to tell you to
turn over
And learn to take it from behind
Mama's going to buy you a dog named Rover.
She is going to make a thousand attempts at
Giving you a normal childhood
Because something deep inside her
Knows that she wants better for you
But she doesn’t know how to love you
If that dog named Rover
Makes a mess on the carpet
Chews up her shoes
Barks at the neighbors
She’s going to beat him senseless in front of your eyes
She’s going to beat the dog out of him
Like she’s beating the child out of you.
Until finally, he simply
won't bark.
And you simply
Will cease to be a child
And when you hear that
Mama's going to buy you a horse and cart.
You will know to look the gift horse in the mouth
To lower your expectations
As you lower your head
If that horse and cart fall down,
You know that it will be your responsibility to pick it back up
To make things right
To fix the problem that your very existence
Seems to have caused
You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town
But you won’t know it anymore
The cruelty of this life will have
Depleted your supply of self esteem
You will see only anger and hurt and rage
And all of the ugliness inside of you
So hush little baby
Quell that wailing
Before daddy gets mad
Before Mama wakes up
Stare silently at the spot on the wall
Behind your crib
Where your head chipped the plaster
Last time you were thrown
don't you cry
For the people who aren’t going to be there
Learn early on to dig deep down into your own inner wells
Find strength there, love yourself when no one else will
And wait for a better day, because it will come
You will find a new family someday
and when that Mama tells you:
“Daddy loves you and so do I.”
You will believe it
And you will be able to love yourself.
