Nobody Had To Tell Me Poem by Charlotte Ballard

Nobody had to tell me
Never to invite my friends home
Never raise my voice
Don’t turn on the lights
Don’t talk when the TV’s on
Don’t touch the Vodka bottle in the cabinet
Don’t talk about –

The house
The home
Or the man that tore one
from the other.

Nobody had to tell me
Not to ask for money
for school
for trips
for clothes that fit
Not even for a book
Thrown out by the man
Who threw out everything.


Nobody had to tell me
That guns that click
May also click at me.