When I Was Six: A Sestina or Falling Down

Thrice, when I was small I tripped and fell to the floor.
First it was an ouch, a burn, a bleed; a hole
in the knee of my oldest pants.
They were the never the same again, even with patches
ironed on with my mother pressing hard, steam
dripping to the corners of the board until the patch was glued.

After, they wore funny on the crotch and legs as I glued
Valentine's Day cards (the shaking glitter fluttering to the floor).
It was winter with the outside cold and the inside hot, the confused glass between filmed in steam,
and watching that I'd rip, rip, rip wide in the paper card, a paper hole
which I'd stab my finger through and wiggle, then with glitter I'd patch
it up. Then I'd wiggle my bored bum--I wore funny, uncomfortable hanging pants.

I'd walk bow-legged when I wore them: my funny hanging pants.
I'd walk as if the inside of my knees were glued,
or hurt. I'd wobble and pither and patch
until I'd fall again, thudding and punting to the floor.
Sometimes my mother wouldn't be there to iron the hole,
she wouldn't be there to straighten and seam and steam.

In the summer season, when the cement steamed
I'd wear my knobby-knees bare and open with no funny hanging pants
and I'd run, run, run twist and this time I'd sink from a hole,
watch my blood melt, drip from my hands, so sticky, like glue,
spread out on the grassy, suburban sunshine floor,
I'd lay there twisted and watching myself spill into a pretty plotted patch.

It was that fall that I watched the weird off-colour patch
on the wall in my bedroom as if it were sick, and ignored the psychotic steam
rising, the feel of rug burn with my face to the flabbergasted floor
and the wishing for and then the washing of my funny-hanging pants.
I'd heard Johnny Jewkes say that you could get high from glue,
maybe because it had dead horse bits (but he ate worms, and) all the glue just fell right through the hole.

Nothing filled that gawping, yawning, stretching, awful hole.
My mother didn't know what to do and applied her useless patches
she glittered, she glued
she stewed and steamed
to no avail but a silent girl with listless red-stained pants
sitting a cross-legged anticipating silent on the floor.

On and on the years went, my face to the floor, and my heart a gaping hole
'Till one day I outgrew those pants and the awkward butterfly patch.
I traded in for a new pair: starched and steamed. I learned to skip and not trip and I wrapped my heart in rubber glue



Note: This poem takes license and veers from what really happened. I was never raped in my bedroom. I did have a pair of jeans with a butterfly patch but that was in junior high and meant to be "cool". I did, as all kids with cerebral palsy, trip an awful lot. All the limping from getting raped was attributed to the already present limp from my cerebral palsy.