childhood pictures

i was once wise
in a time when my knees were round smooth things larger than my legs
i watched girls and boys play
and i played on their periphery- with them but never with them
i was never the queen
i was never allowed
i was always accused of cheating, even when i didn't know the rules
but i never declined to play the game

i was once at the height of my solitude
when i hid beneath chairs covered with a blue blanket
but my vision saw everything yellow
like the yellow of a white man's skin
in a dark room
with the soft flames of a quiet fire caressing his face
i was quiet, my mouth did not move
but with my doll
i went away, so far away
much beyond the unseen borders made by the chair's legs
and Mok and Ayah forgot i was in the house
but they didn't know i had long escaped

i was once hovering just above the nadir
when i lived in a box with walls that climbed high, up to where a cellar should have been but never was
where i scarfed down book after book
to try and fill my belly with the warmth that people couldn't give
because there were none

these are things the photographs can never tell you.