Childhood tales of terror.
A seven-year-old boy doesn’t believe
in Santa Claus. He believes in Satan, though,
hears him in or just outside his head,
commanding him to kill others and himself.
He wants to kill himself before the Devil does it.
I ask him if the voice sounds like anyone.
He says, like reading a primer, “It’s my Dad’s voice.”
Calm and cool: “My Dad’s the Devil.”
My notes will read: “Extremely flat affect.
Severe trauma history likely, though
no family history available; therefore
it is difficult to differentiate between
psychotic process and severe
dissociative symptoms amounting
to hallucinosis, secondary
to post-traumatic stress.”
Satan told the boy to stab the teacher
with her own sharp scissors.
This time he tried to obey. I send him
to a psych ward full of other kids.
Before the silent ambulance arrives,
I tell him he’s been brave to fight the voice
so hard, so long, and all alone.
I tell him safe grownups will help him now.
I hope it is true.
A week later I meet his sister,
five years old, tiny, sweet, smiling.
She’d set a pillow on fire
as her foster sister was sleeping on it.
She figured that the grownups
would send her back to her parents
if she burned the foster home and all within it.
She told me she had watched her father
dangle her brother in one hand
by the throat, until he pissed his pants
and lost all consciousness.
Who puts all the voices in the heads
that put the voices in the heads?
~ Wry Welwood,
late twentieth century,
re-edited May, 2021.
(The kids’ family had already been reported to the state. That’s why they were in foster homes. Too little, too late. There really are psych wards full of children, lots of them.)
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