seemed everything they said was a lie, that was my seeing of adults as a kid.
I’ll take you fishing they’d say & then they never did. Our neighbour took me fishing once & bored I wandered away along the river bank which scared the crap out of him.
We’ll go again he said but the next time he took my old man & not me, which was what always happened, I’ll buy you an ice cream, we’ll go to the beach, we’ll go on the rides and…yeah we’d be at the beach but they’d be at the bar drinking while I skulked the shore alone again.
& stuff disappeared the whole time, toys, chocolate, presents, just stuff. They’d tell me that I’d lost it, broken it, eaten it all in one go, but I knew that was untrue. Like I had a money bank shape of a head, put in a coin in the hand flip the lever & it’d put the penny in the mouth. Gone one day & I was told that I’d given it away. Couple of years later I found it sitting in a cupboard at my uncle’s place, oh no they said that’s a different thing. But I knew. I knew.
This was how I learned not to trust adults, to trust anybody, ‘cos kids fuck each other over constantly, always looking for an edge, I got more than you, I get better grades, my dad earns more, our house is bigger, we got a better tv.
So not only was I not comfortable or safe at home, the world was unsafe &
uncomfortable too. & Then they, my folks had the nerve, the balls to question my attitude.
Better still, years later they claimed to not understand why I’d moved so far away from them
