a Purple Heart award

i'll give you something to chew on,

like a piece of fat or a this or that:

when young, i pulled a wing from the body of a colorful

Monarch butterfly and felt nothing was amiss.

i caught a yellow and black bumblebee with a bare hand

and it stung me, but i didn't cry.

i tossed 6 colorful baby chicks from a 2nd floor porch on

an Easter Sunday and they fell heavily onto the

black asphalt of a driveway.

they all died from the fall, but i didn't understand death.

my mother madly chased me around our home but before she could grab me, 

i dashed into the bathroom and quickly slammed shut the door!

i could clearly hear her screaming for me to open the door,

but it stayed firmly locked.

a while passed before she handled a garden axe and threatened to

smash the door if i didn't open it!

i watched the leading edge of her axe as it blasted thru the flimsy wood door.

my father kicked me when he became angry, which was often.

he had a temper and i was his little boy, too available.

i once found his brass knuckles in the master bedroom;

they looked well worn.

i still have a knife tip scar on my right forearm, but can't remember

whether it bled when i was initially cut;  my father said it was an accident.

on a memorable Christmas morning, my excitement to open a first present

was smothered by the realization that it was a gift box filled with black Pennsylvania

anthracite coal.  The coal was hard, small chunks of aged rock.

i sat in stunned silence, the box on my lap.

as a young adult, i became a soldier in a foreign war in South Vietnam,

but i didn't merit a Purple Heart award.

i already had one, thank you.