she keeps making the payment

it's just like rent
what the family extracts

she pays by playing
the assigned role

they dangle love before her
like an ornament
like a cat toy
watch it move

she leaps to catch it
starved for love
starved for attention
any attention

cruel hoax
as they yank the toy away
no love
and if she objects

"No yowling.
No howling.
Can't you take a joke?
You are too sensitive."

She curls in the corner
miserable, labelled.
Ignored.
Until they want to play again.


She sneaks out at night
to play with others.

Far enough from their ears
she yowls.

"So? Why do you stay?"

She creeps back to the familiar
but more and more
she wonders

"So? Why do I stay?"

And at last she doesn't.

Gone. No more payments,
for something she never received.

Pay"ment (?), n. [F. payment, paiement. See Pay to requite.]

1.

The act of paying, or giving compensation; the discharge of a debt or an obligation.

No man envieth the payment of a debt. Bacon.

2.

That which is paid; the thing given in discharge of a debt, or an obligation, or in fulfillment of a promise; reward; recompense; requital; return.

Shak.

3.

Punishment; chastisement.

[R.]

 

© Webster 1913.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.