NaPoWriMo (Day 19): The things your mother used to say

 
 For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

19

Today’s challenge is to write a poem that starts with a command. It could be as uncomplicated as “Look,” as plaintive as “Come back,” or as silly as “Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.” Whatever command you choose, I hope you have fun ordering your readers around.

 
The things your mother used to say
 
“DON’T PLAY WITH YOUR BELLY BUTTON
OR YOUR BELLY WILL POP!” she said.
 
I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I
received this, the biggest “don’t do it” of my life.
If I was in the bath and my mother was there,
then I must have been very little. This warning
scarred me for life. I never touched my belly button
again. It remained totally unexplored territory.
 
“DON’T SWALLOW THOSE PIPS OR
A TREE WILL GROW INSIDE YOUR BELLY!”
 
Well, that stopped me dead from eating the pips
of oranges and apples, and I still spend an eternity
picking them out. I dreamed of some monstrosity
growing from the pits of my legs all the way up to
my neck, taking up the entire in between with branches
and leaves, little twigs twisting into my arms.
 
“DON’T PULL A FACE LIKE THAT OR
THE WIND WILL CHANGE AND IT WILL GET STUCK!”
 
How we’d check the mirrors in trepidation.
Would our expressions take on odd contortions –
eyeballs raised to the sky, noses screwed up,
our ears wiggling and tongues stuck out?
It turned out we were only impish for a minute
before normal facial services resumed.
 
“EAT THE CRUSTS ON YOUR BREAD COS
THEY’LL PUT HAIRS ON YOUR CHEST!”
 
I was never sure about the point of this one.
It didn’t make me want to gobble up
every little portion of my spam sandwich
as I didn’t dream of having a big, hairy chest,
being a girl and all. I carefully trimmed off
all the crusts and never looked back.
 
“DON’T STARE AT THE GROUND OR
YOU WON’T SEE WHERE YOU’RE GOING!”
 
Well, this one turned out to be true one day,
when I was walking home from school,
daydreaming and watching my feet
as if they belonged to someone else –
up, down, up, down… SMACK!
I walked straight into a lamppost.
 
“NIGHT, NIGHT, DON’T LET
THE BED BUGS BITE!”
 
As a kid, I had no idea what a bed bug was.
I thought it was a giant, hairy monster,
cos that’s what I hid from when I went to bed,
pulling the covers way up over my head
and being careful not to peek out,
just in case one happened to be passing…
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 19, 2022