Recoil

Recoil: verb: to draw back; start or shrink back, as in alarm, horror, or disgust.

Fear itself was nurtured in the womb.

I was born with it...
It was a joke
to hear it told.
"You were always so scared,
you got scared of the fire truck
we gave you. And you said,
Go- go."
my mother relates.

I never could bond
with Mom or Dad
It seemed...

Afraid of the need
for contact...
to be touched was both
a desire and
taboo.

In the pool,
you threw me,
you tried to teach me
to swim, Mom,
but when I got scared
I wrapped my arms around
the older girl who
was teaching me at the YMCA.
I felt shame
how strange for a 5 year old boy...
I wanted to be held by the her,
the instructor.
Yet, I feared my desire
was it pleasure I had felt?
If so, why was it bad?

Perhaps Freud was onto something
with his talk of taboos.
I always had a strange phobia of
snakes – strange because I both
feared them and was fascinated by snakes.
I loved to see them in the zoo,
and later at
the Serpentarium in Wilmington, NC.
How bizarre a phobia
attraction and repulsion...

Of course, the dreams explain it all.
Dreams of being served snakes
cut up into pieces after being cooked
it's unmistakable how much they resemble
a penis!
And just seeing them being served
In the dream...
I woke up nauseous.

I remember your touch
mother, when I recoiled
as if I had touched a snake.
your face that night in my dream looked
like a rattlesnake.
It's unmistakable...
those snakes seem to be
menacing, almost
human,
yet demonic.

 

My reaction...
I don't know why it happened.
Your reaction was full of rage
and however justified
it only precipitated
the nightmare.
The look of shock
on your face,
and the expression of anger,
as if I intended to harm you.
It was a reflex,
born out of a primal fear.

Perhaps Freud was onto something.
I always wanted
the love of a mother
yet I was born with fear.