The Kitchen Counter

I wish I could remember what it was like before I could see over the counter,

As soon as I could, all the offers to help faded away. 

The first place I ever lived there was a what would now be a waist high counter separating the kitchen and living room,

I still remember the faux marble almost emerald green pattern on the top of it if I close my eyes. 

As soon as I could see over the counter it started to feel like I’m alone,

See, over the top of the counter you could be left home. 

Over the top of the counter I learned to feed and change babies and to comfort them when the adults were arguing, 

Learned to be quieter when the storms would come. 

Tall enough to see over the counter you could learn to start cooking and cleaning and learning to care for the smaller children. 

Tall enough to pretend that everything was okay when you went to school and to make sure that you did your homework in your room so no one felt obligated to pretend to care about offering you help. 

When you can see over the counter you can see that the adults do almost more yelling than talking even if they try to hide it behind paper thin walls and hollow doors. 

Seeing over the counter means finally learning why mom is crying when dad finally goes to sleep, 

Over the counter there’s an explanation for why we have to be quiet and why we get in trouble for not keeping the house clean. 

Being able to see over the counter means being able to open the door and learning to be careful what you say when people in nice clothes show up and start asking you questions,

Making sure that nothing you say can get dad into trouble because “discipline is how children learn.”

It means making sure that no matter what is going on with you, you make sure that your brothers are guarded behind steel walls to protect them when the tornadoes are coming,

Because they always come even if there’s nothing to warn you. 

Once you can see over the counter you learn what’s actually happening behind closed doors and it makes you sick to your stomach, 

The smaller the counter seems the more you feel everything seems to change at lightning speed. 

Beyond the top of the counter you learn why in the middle of the night we went to stay with mom’s best friend. 

When the ambulance shows up you start to wish more than anything that the counter top was out of your reach once again because then you could hide under it, 

The calm between the ambulance and the police doesn’t last long because no matter how much sugar you add to cold tea it doesn’t get sweeter. 

I miss the counter, I miss not knowing what I’ve learned, 

But I know more than anything that now that the counter is no longer there, I have to be the counter that protects the littles one who can’t yet see over it. 

I hope when he can that it’s more beautiful that it ever was for me, 

I hope there’s no storms or yelling or crying.