A large man, despondent with his life;
I got that despondency full in the face
almost daily for disremembering my lines;
which, of course, I could never remember
with the fear of that punishment coming.
Cruelty was the currency in education;
discipline through fear;
their weaponry included leather straps, bamboos,
legs of chairs, even a billiard cue,
and sarcasm to dent where a strap couldn’t reach.
They hoarded family histories for future belittlement,
retained memories to settle old scores,
retaliated down the sibling line. They decided,
over and over, in the cultivation of their pettinesses
who would succeed and who would fail.
But this abuse is not in the past, it’s in a different place;
an adapting, evolving infection.
Look for it down different corridors;
find it where respect is allocated on dictate,
where empathy is a flaw.
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