six years old lights out bedroom door closed I lay in bed plotting my father’s death for hating us, for beating us for keeping our mother from kissing us goodnight said we were too old for that a terrorized household no wonder I flinch a stranger, a burglar would climb through my window I would convince him my father had the money I would show him where & how to kill him Go, do it now, I’d say one day, drunk, he stepped off the commuter train before it stopped was nearly dragged under the train shoe shredded, clothes torn I wrung my hands so close, so close some people deserve to die I’m not a killer or am I?