They Told Me They Loved Me.
My parents told me they loved me after every time they beat me black and blue.
Maybe I was a very lucky child or maybe my parents were not telling the truth.
I wonder does that mean my friend\'s parents do not love any of them.
Because they do not have cuts and bruises covering their back, legs and arms.
My parents told me they loved me when they had not given me any food for two days.
They said it would be good for me and would help my bulging stomach go away.
I was not allowed to go back to school until the cuts and bruises had disappeared.
They said if the other children saw them, they would pick on me is what they feared.
My parents told me they loved me when I had to crouch in the corner with my hands on my head all night.
It is good for me to understand from a young age what is wrong and what is right.
When they made me repeatedly practise all the lies, that I always had to say.
For when the doctor and social worker visited us every Tuesday and Friday.
My parents told me they loved me when they made me sleep in the bath.
I must not tell anyone especially the other children because they would just laugh.
When they would not get me new shoes, when water was getting in because the souls were falling off.
It was very important for me to learn value of money because new things cost a lot.
My parents told me they loved me when I had to scrub the floors throughout the house.
It would stand me in good stead and was for my own good to understand what hard work was all about.
When they insulted me and constantly slashed my bottom with the big leather belt.
Because I was always having little accidents and had again wet myself.
My parents told me they loved me when they locked me in the cupboard under the stairs.
It would make a man out of me, and I would learn not to be afraid of the dark and be scared.
When they left me to look after my sisters while they went out regularly to the pub.
It was good training for me and would teach me how to behave like a grown up.
I still wonder did my parents really love me, I guess now I am never really going to know.
But they told me they did when I watched my father break my mother\'s nose.
Maybe they did and it was me in the wrong, maybe I\'m being ungrateful for everything they have done.
My friend’s parents do not show their love in the same way, so maybe I deserved it, I was the one to blame.
Nataiella/1977