Inside the Cookie Jar

I peer at these tall things with legs and mouths

                who appear just like me with the exception

        that they use words beyond my comprehension.

Aunt Pink pinches my cheeks. I despise that:

                “Cat got your tongue,” she muses. “He’s adorable

                Nell.” I thought her name was Mommy.

        And no kitty has stolen my tongue. I am confident

        that I would notice should I cough up a fur ball.

                And Fluffy would want her hair returned

                         to her sleek, velvety coat.

Why do these people, they call them adults,

                mutter the most peculiar, flimsy fragments?

        I cannot speak for myself, defend my position,

        as I only know “Mommy” and “Dada.”

I see my mother’s lips moving when suddenly she declares,

                “Well, I told Doreen, there’s no use crying over spilt

                milk . It’s only a dirt stain. It should rinse

                from the garment, don’t you think?”

        When I turn my bottle over, all panic occurs,

        like all went straight to Hell in a hand basket.

                So this “stain” must be pretty serious. I would harrow

                for hours on end. And what’s this about a hand

                         basket, and why send it down to an eternity

                         of fire and brimstone, I peruse in my two year old

                inner voice. See, I can understand perfectly;

                          I just do not possess the required vocabulary

                                   yet to present my case.

Aunt Pink, or Purple, I forget then professes the clincher:

                “Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

        At that point I clinch and wail. Because I desperately desire

        a chocolate chip wafer from the precious, magic jar

                on the Formica counter top, the special one

                         where all good boys and girls receive a treat

                         for being on their best behavior for displaying

                the most superlative manners, and I have not uttered

                a single word up to this point, even if these “people”

                         are talking in the oddest colloquialisms.

I am certain that I have blown a sumptuous dessert,

                when all of a sudden in front of me, a big bowl -

                         to me that is - of vanilla ice cream is placed

                         before my greedy hands.

“All good babies go to Heaven,” I hear her sigh, followed

                         by large toothy smiles and appreciative grins.

                                  Everyone seems so happy.

Once more I do not follow, and am left on the outside looking in,

                        left in the dark, where monsters lurk and creepy men

                hide beneath children’s beds. I screech once more,

                                  not aspiring to go to this Heaven place;

                        instead I want Papa to clutch me in his big, strong arms

                cooing, “there, there. Nothing is going to scare my little boy”,

                as I embark upon trusting that growing up to be similar

                        these goofs might be just cause for returning to the womb,

                        where it is safe, a haven against the darkness;

                                  from where I an perched, it is blatant that the blind

                                  are leading the blind, and if that is the score

                        then I am better somewhere else, anywhere but here,

                                  where nothing can possibly harm me.