Eileen Tabios
A Childhood Aftermath
I remember cool breezes coiling their milky skeins around pine trees.
When I stepped on pine cones, the soles on my feet recoiled but my smile never slipped.
A neighbor stole my pet pig and ate the evidence.
I was cruel to a young lady from the barrio, labeling her, "Maid."
When I wasn't loving Cosmo, my kid brother, I was torturing him.
My father was benign in his absence.
My mother collected shoes that Rosing, the housekeeper, always inherited after a year, changed its identity.
Boying was cruel but he was the oldest son.
Roy, my twin, ignored me -- to this day his indifference leaves me breathless, stunned.
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