INFATUATION OR OBSESSION

The things that make me angry
are the things that drive me mad
and little's worse than hugging
when quite 'nough hugs are had

perhaps I'm oversensitive,
so correct me if I'm wrong,
but aren't we s'posed to ask before
we touch for times so long?

less ruinous than war,
not shocking near as murder,
but somehow just as awful as a
tiger for sheep's herder.

Truly, inoffensively,
the cherub casts his gaze
on objects of affections, with
which he'd like to lay

obsessed to death, he boldly claims
that you're his lone salvation
care thee not, he'll tell you plain,
for love's his new sensation

and if that mark refuses him,
be certain that you'll pay!
And rue the day you passed him up
and made him feel dismay.

Cupid's arrows, repute fair,
they point in all directions
drawn back, then released in air
to cite some new affections

pale-rose suits, and fairy's wings,
polite in all they do,
they know not where the road may go,
but hope it leads to you

and if another's need is great,
they'll put their own aside...
to cast off arrows, instigate
new lovers far and wide.

But cherubs, lo, they have no sense
of others' needs before them
ivories too intimate, to
see what's in the forum

pucker, kiss, leaned in too close,
a diaper stained with wild abandon
arms too fat with baby's grace
to give them strength to land in

rather than accept their blame,
and cry for reasons fair,
they'll shriek their infantile dismay
to all who'll heed their wares.

Then a clash, of dolls in hand,
they have not had their way!
So now before The Gods Themselves,
they'll make you how they play

if have you lonesome, they cannot,
they'll see that someone does...
or perhaps, they'd seen their lot, and were
disgusted by your limbic fuzz.

manipulation, turn of phrase,
two dolls, angry, faces smushed
regardless of your realer dreams
which they'd prefer were too soon crushed.

* * *

Aside from those indecent incidents, The Sheller reminded me a lot of myself. I called her that because she was a seashell hobbyist, and adored the waters yonder. She always needed to see the waves from the shores and feel sand between her toes.
Her younger brother, The Clamper, liked to look for oysters instead. He hung around the local fishermen expectantly, dreaming of a glistening pearl. His father had once told him if he'd found one, he'd become gloriously rich. He was as clingy and resolute as ever a child could be, and once he'd decided you were his, he'd force his arms aviced to you, and never let go. This was heart-warming at first, but grew tiresome as I lifted him and his brother into the air for the fifth time in a row. By only my arms at the sides, one child each. It was becoming a daily occurrence, and enough was never enough for them. Gradually, he became invasive, and a bit of a bully to his younger brother. He, in a fit of entitlement, dug his face into the small of my back and the crack of my ass, and nuzzled it in front of everyone. The Prosaic was a box of laughs most of the time, but when it came to children, he was dead serious. Nothing would get past him, and none would abuse one on his watch – except for yelling at them a little too much, which in his eyes, kept them safe. For this, I admired him, and found him one of the only stable influences in the entire family. But he looked at me with suspicion, as if I'd somehow encouraged 'that sort' of relationship with my younger cousin. So I scolded him, the little brat, and told him "This is the reason I don't always want to spend time with you – I tell you 'no' and you go ahead and do what you want to anyway. What you did made me uncomfortable, and I want an apology."
But everyone else, The Rater, Chief, and Collector, made excuses for his behavior, and found his violation of my boundaries to be utterly intangible. They did just as little when the children practiced kissing their other cousins in the halls, and even squealed and celebrated – calling it "cute". When they cornered their own siblings in the closets, I was, apparently, to stand by and do nothing for them – even though, as I mentioned before, the youngest of them was only four years old. I became so jaded with them, over time.
The Clamper complained, "SHE SUCKED AND BIT MY ELBOW!"
The Sheller whined, "NO I DIDN'T!"
I rolled my eyes. "Whatever you did, he didn't like it. Cut it out."
I shook my head, and watched them pass me from the sofa. They were becoming exhausting to manage, and were giving each other the kinds of mishandled affection I longed for; but only from girls in my village, or from The Knight again in my wildest fantasies. The Rater and Chief kept me far too close on the grounds to ever try, and seemed jealous at the mere sight of a viable option for myself – anyone else my age was chased away through subtle jabs and malicious glares, and possibly even private threats. It was suspectable of them. I was never allowed company without some intense form of scrutiny, not even once. Nobody wanted to challenge them... they knew who "owned all the food". Forget love, I couldn't even make friends. Not a solitary acquaintance. Even our neighbors beyond the fence received a vicious stare from The Rater, for they in their elder years were apparently a threat to her sense of control over me – I wasn't to make polite conversation with anyone on her watch, it appeared. Yet The Collector's children were barely grown, and allowed to mingle like rodents – so it disgusted me, and made me angry. I tried not to resent them, and to remain as peaceful as I possibly could. Eventually, that breath of sanction found me again, and I put myself back into my place. It wasn't their fault, anyway – they should have had a father to guide them.

Well, after the back-nuzzling incident, The Clamper became spoiled and welpish; constantly looking for a fight, locking me out of the house for a laugh, and running to his mother the instant he was caught. Respectful and esteemed though she was, she was simply too tired or too entertained to stop them... from doing anything they were regularly allowed to do wrong. She scolded me instead, and told me I was 'deranged' for instigating, or at least for reacting. I've only aggressed the wee bastard a few times, by my count: once, I'd held him upside down while he was shouting and misbehaving, having spilled red food and stolen purple wine all over a fine new carpet by sheer carelessness. He only laughed, having gotten what he really wanted: attention. Then, I'd set him on the balcony railing to see the sunrise – and he took that as a threat of murder by falling, despite my arms at his sides. It was his wriggling that scared me, so I brought him down before he could be proven right. That time, I had definitely made a mistake. Another time, he'd run away with his mother's wallet just as she was late to a doctor's appointment – for him, because he'd caught a vicious flu. For all his mother knew, it could've been the plague. I caught him on the lawn, tackled him down, and gave him the most reserved sock to the gut I possibly could, just to make him drop the thing. I was so sullen, so determined not to hurt him and to show him nothing but peace, and yet so, so incredibly angry. His ungratefulness and self-destruction was like a drunken cabby crashing his carriage for a lark, sending the whole damned thing and its helpless horse over a cliff and into the gaping sea. I chocked it up to fever, and left him there to get up on his own. He whined.
I said, "I don't feel bad for you, you little shit. Your mother's only trying to help you, and so am I."
Then I went back and helped him up, because I felt bad again. The flames had died back down to embers, and I was seeing the smoke for what it was. Just a damn show. The scolding I caught for that was just as bad, but between her and the lecturing of The Rater and the browbeating of The Chief, I was already growing numb to it all. It was just more judgment, from people barely qualified at all to be judges of any kind.
The Clamper was physically sore for a day, and emotionally sore for a week. Every single incident seemed to sour his temper a little more – he was not the forgiving type, but a competitive spoil-sport who'd found himself enraged at a recent losing streak. He, apparently having been promised the entire golden world on a silver platter by his now-absent father. He was always crying, yet never actually sad except when he stopped and remembered that he was gone. I played cards with his sister and promised to teach him when could tell me what they said. He always sat and watched, complaining, but when I last saw him, he still couldn't read them. Despite everything, it made me sad that I couldn't uphold that promise.

His younger brother was the calmest of the three, but had a shorter fuse than any of them. I called him The Tantrum. Though we had the most in common, I was unable to deny: his unmanageable episodes made him, at times, the least reasonable of them all. Stubborn and defiant, like I'd hope a child to be, but for all the wrong reasons. One week I was caring for him while he had the flu, and another I was snatching keys from his hands before he could scratch the walls with them. We were, after all, still trying to sell the house. Once, I was even forced (for a reason I can no longer remember) to yell in his face that his mother was "a rock", and he'd be lost without her. He only looked up and smiled at me, like I'd been playing a part in a particularly silly puppet show. So delicately sprinkled with madness, every last person there. And I was the only one who lamented it, for I too was beginning to grow mad with anger, resentment, and hurt. I was still a virgin, looking for love at my own appropriate age, and these tiny heathens were being groomed for a lifetime of anything but appropriate.
The children never did calm down, and The Tantrum stayed a rotten pissbaby for a very long time. But, The Tantrum was a mere toddler, of four years old – and he'd suffered just as much as the rest of The Collector's children, even if he barely knew his father enough to miss him. It was understandable, for all of them, to clench for their familial pains; although their coping methods warranted severe revision. The Sheller's father was another story altogether, and she often visited him... in the village jail. I never learned what he did, but she adored him for a very long time, and thought the world of him. The Tantrum had no such attachment to his own progenitor. In many ways, his older siblings, his mother, and I were the only role models he needed – and I was still trying desperately to escape, unable to find other lodging or work elsewhere. Though The Chief attested that it was in fact, he himself, who was the greatest influence on the lad – I hoped to God that wasn't true, and swore under my breath for him saying it. It was just last week of Yule, during a harsh winter, when The Tantrum had been staying with me in my room while I read. He was climbing my legs, peeking out from under my desk, and trying out new words at my ears. Then, suddenly, The Chief BURST into the bedroom, and growled at him, "HEY!! YOU know you're not supposed to be in here. You were supposed to stay in the living room, YOU were TOLD!!"
I'd left the door ajar, and soon I'd regret that I hadn't locked it.
The Rationeer, beside her secondary source of income, cried, "Come here, young one! Come with us!"
So the little tyke, caught in naught but a diaper, waddled over obediently. But it didn't matter. The Chief had already made up his mind: the child was to be punished. He took out his belt, and folded it up in his hands. The brute who called himself "the man of the house" raised his arm, and lashed the poor wee bastard three times on the back. It was like the passion of the Goddamned Christ in there – little man was wailing with agony, shoulders seized upwards, cries unanswered by his so-called protectors. On his bare back, he was met with leather and solemn red streaks. The Chief was no longer extending his palm to the little ones, and now was raising only his fists and his belt.

When I later told The Collector, she seemed worried, but never said a word to her mother about it – at least not one that I'd been witness to. I imagined she'd probably downplay it anyway, as she often did, to falsely ease her daughter's nerve. The Rater would later claim that she couldn't remember the incident at all – and for a moment, I couldn't tell if she was lying to cover herself, or if she'd simply drank the memory away, forever.