THE BROKEN CHILD - A POEM OF YOUTH SPORTS TRAGEDY

The following poem was written by Mike Hall about his heartbreaking experience as a 10 year old with his coach-father. It coincides with the previous blog which details Mike's interactions with his father so many years ago.

Your voice was like thunder

that rocked my room and my world.

It shook my soul and crushed my spirit.

Where it came from doesn't matter.

You were wrong...

the first time

and the last.

There are no excuses

and I am not to blame.

I will not accept that it was

just your way of letting off steam.

Dad, you were a volcano

erupting near my heart.

It wasn't smoke and ash

that I feared,

it was the suffocating thought

that tortured my brain...

the thought that there was nothing,

nothing in the world

that I could do,

to make you love the broken child

that was too scared to speak

and too hurt to cry.