Slow to Anger

At eight or nine, I did laps around 
the kerosene heater, a girl running
 
a one-woman race on brown shag
carpet.  Screaming, while Mother 
 
sat in her chair calm, I was lonely, 
wanted to be noticed. 
 
My chest tightened as I ran more 
and more laps, my body leaning hard
 
in the tight web I’d woven.  I asked myself 
Is this what it feels to be insane?
 
Running to something or away, 
my undeveloped brain couldn’t answer, 
 
so when she only watched, not moving
from her worn LazyBoy, I chased 
 
my beloved pet Cockatiel Mickey 
with a wooden dowel, the base 
 
of a handheld flag—pursued him, striking
the couch near him, the cushion 
 
indented.  To the lamp shade he flew.
I struck again, shattering the shade’s plastic 
 
accordion edge.  I remember his chest rising 
and falling, his top feather on end, his one eye large, 
 
piercing me like a push pin.  I was hurting 
the one I loved best, scaring the one 
 
who’d done nothing to me.  I stopped.
My breaths slowed.  The stick dropped.
 
Mother asked, “Do you feel better?” 
as if she knew what I was feeling all along.  

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