If You Lived Here

 If you lived here, you would know 

what it is to grow up in a house that taught you silence.

Taught you to be 

what you needed to be 

so as not to upset the apple cart.

If you lived here, you would know

how many hours you would sit with a wood stove

burning hot at your back 

until you fell asleep.

All because you wouldn't, couldn't

eat your vegetables.

If you lived here, you would be the cause of every voice

raised in anger, of each and every cross word said across the table.

If you lived here, you would remember plates,

the way they sailed across the room and how they shattered 

and the picture that still hangs to cover the hole in the wall.