Remembering a childhood gone bad

Memories of my parents house and backyard. So surprised that the neighbors never called the police or child protective services, what with the daily screaming, children crying, adults yelling...I don't get it. Apathy? Not wanting to get involved? It was a small house, on a city street with but ten feet till each neighbors door. No one heard anything that raised red flags? No ones heart ached at the sound of the crying children?
 Being chased. Remembering the times parents would chase, hunt me down for whatever physical punishment I "deserved". I wasn't the only one to run. Brothers and sisters, too, once old enough to realize that they only grab the slowest one they can catch, ran. There wasn't such a thing as justice or "punishing" the one who did the deed...it was whomever they could catch first.


 I can't count the times I raced, got caught, arms grabbed, clothing ripped, hair pulled. Whatever mom and dad could grab was fair game. Reminds me of calf roping...they ran around with the rope, didn't matter if it grabbed a leg or a neck, they took you down. It was hard not to feel like an animal. Running, chasing, grabbing, punching in the head (no bruises there for anyone to see)...the pull that stopped the run and brought one face to face with angry, spittle mouths spewing about the wretched evil of little children innocently playing, or knocking over a lamp, or teasing little brother or not cleaning the kitchen. Being held, yelled at, belittled, hurt. Don't like being grabbed or having to run. Hate being chased, hate being caught. Head punches and slaps hurt to. Ringing ears and headaches. Deafening.
  So many different types of abuse. Today, remembering the physical. Body hurting stuff. I'm very attached to my body, so it hurt emotionally to have it beaten and damaged so. Never deserved it. Never.
 Always trying to escape..them, the anticipatory blows, the pain and hurt. Hard to be trapped like that.
 Another reason I thought the neighbors might call...children running out doors being chased and in fear. Funny, as we kids got older, we realized how much the parents were afraid of getting caught. So, when we could, we would run out the fron door because parents wouldn't chase us where others could see. But, if the only possible escape route was into the backyard...well, our odds were not so good. Could get caught, yelled at and hit where no one could see.
 Interesting how neighbors were so quick to build fences...not wanting to see, when one phone call could have saved the children.
 I've never returned to that house, since I left in the late eighties. Oh, I did a couple drivebys but I never set foot in, nor walked into that backyard. When I say it was a house of horrors, I say it in the truest sense of the phrase.


  Such misery....should not be felt and lived by innocent children. No, not ever.
  I am the sole survivor, in a way, a survivor that remembers and reveals all that others want hidden and denied. I heal in the telling, the sharing.
  Thanks for reading.