book-belly starving
for pages fantastical,
haunted by lost
hungry girls,
I ate red apples
heavy-salted on the tomb
the sleeping Victorian corpses
below fed me secrets
sentinel owls peered
from a grove of old pines,
all of us hoping, waiting on signs
of the change
that was promised
driven
My father first let me drive when I was twelve
in the woods on old logging trails,
only a couple times in town
when he was over the limit.
I drove in sheer terror
never crashed
not even a scratch in the paint
he was proud of me
and that meant a lot.
My mother never knew
that we forged a secret alliance
in the middle of our
Cold War nuclear-family meltdown
so when it was time for her
to teach me how to drive
I faked it, pretending
I didn’t have a clue.
ante-crescendo
My mother hit me in the face
for the last time
when my father lost his job
lost us to the wildfire
that scorched the dining room table
burned up the drapes
while bombs dropped through the ceiling
You have to seriously screw up
to be fired by the Church
cuz love, Jesus, etc.
plus plenty of preachers play
out shame mistakes in glass houses
so they rarely throw stones
but my dad, he was targeted
by petty jealousies and for dumb mistakes,
they called him on the carpet
and wiped the floor with him
subtle, ceremonious excommunication
bell, book, and candlewise
Dad’s pedestal tipped
over and he had a great fall
and all of the king’s horses
and all of the king’s men
didn’t give a damn
I argued with him about something stupid
so confused that our life was in flames
Dad told me to shut up, as he stormed off
I stuck out my tongue at his retreating form
just as Mom came around the corner,
with a mean backhand and explosive temper
she hit me
I was almost as tall as she was,
just as angry
and much, much stronger
we stared at each other
after the blow, on the edge
of annihilation, wordless
combustion
but she was my mother
so I swallowed the lighter fluid
and tilted my head
until my face became her mirror
like I said,
that was the last time
she hit me
packing for exile
We lived in the house on Berkeley Drive
for seven years, long enough to sucker
me into believing that was a home
my mistake
when you’re a preacher’s kid, you move
around a lot, don’t get to paint your walls
or tape up posters; the Church buys the furniture
pays the mortgage and makes all the rules.
Dad sort of disappeared.
No,
actually, he vanished
leaving my mother
to move us
like Hercules, charged with cleaning
the shit-filled stables of King Augeas, she wrestled
a fast-flowing river for the dirty work
refusing to carry the past with us
she threw it all away
stacks of hymnals
her trombone
generations of family letters
quilts, handmade syrup buckets
photographs that made her eyes bleed
chicken pot pies from the freezer
she threw out the memories of Christmases
without tears
the night she went on a rare date with my father
when she wore a black dress with a white collar
perfumed with Joy, lemon-tanged
she tossed out watching the astronauts walk
on the moon
my sister’s broken arm
me singing into a hairbrush
she dumped out Grandpa’s search for his shotgun
when he realized the electroshock
treatment wasn’t working, she trashed
camping in the woods, fireflies dancing
marshmallows toasting over the fire
the only thing we packed in the moving truck
were our carapaces pinned
like specimens to a corkboard
IT, part 1—gasoline
Remember the line in Speak,
“And I thought for just a minute there that . . .
I would start high school with a boyfriend”?
Yeah, that was me
for a couple naive days
when I was
thirteen years old.
We moved in June
four shards of a family,
one apartment of burnt
orange and avocado green,
two bedrooms.
I bought the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
album with my babysitting money. The boy
across the street had a motorbike
he syphoned gas for it every night
the trick, he said,
was only to take a little
from each car,
that way no one noticed.
He grabbed me
once.
Pushed me against a
brick wall, hands greased
with experience
arms metal cables
looping around and encasing me.
I fought, tried to kick
and failed, his mouth dove
for my neck and
I bit him
until I tasted blood.
He backed off, furious
cried that human bites
were germ-filled, poisonous.
I said I hoped that was true.
That boy tasted gasoline dangerous,
but he wasn’t IT.
My sour victory
did not last long.
IT, part 2—trees
We moved to a new
building a few weeks later, I
made friends with girls who shared
candy-flavored lip gloss and giggly fantasies
about Vinnie Barbarino and the Fonz
girls who introduced me to IT,
the friend of a friend of a friend
cuz everyone is your friend when
you’re thirteen and alone.
Broken children
can see each other from miles away,
the original mutants, X-kids abandoned
to their confused scars and rages. I held
his hand, enjoyed our silent summer
swooping circles of bewilderment. Not romance
but comfort, to have a tobacco-smelling
boy, older, bigger, stronger boy
walk by my side.
Looking back, I think his life was a mess.
Looking
back, he still scares me.
Looking back, I wonder how many girls
he hurt
and if someone hurt him first
or if he was simply a felony-committing
shithead.
And then green August, melting-hot
days running out the bottom of the hour-
glass, school time marching
relentlessly toward the children of
summer so intent on capturing
every free minute, like flowers
to be pressed between the pages
of a book. We walked down
the hill to the creek, far away from the heat,
the trees our shade companions, the babble
of water overrunning any need to speak
we tossed pebbles in the water
everything was so calm that’s what I
remember the calm cuz I was safe
and happy tossing pebbles in the water
next to this tobacco-smelling boy
friend,
so when he turned to kiss
me
my mouth met his with delight, I was new
to this kind of kiss and happy to play
by the creek with this boy whose hands then
wandered fast, too fast, too far
like a flash flood overwhelming the startled
banks of a creek that never once thought
of defense, of damming or the need for a bridge
to escape
his hands, arms shoulders back
muscle sinew bone
an avalanche of force
the course predetermined one hand on my mouth
his body covering smothering mine
I took my eyes off the rage
in his face and looked up to the green peace
of leaves fluttering above, trees witnessing
pain shame I crawled into the farthest corner
of my mind biding time hiding surviving
by outsiding
and when he was done
using my body
he stood and zipped his jeans
lit a cigarette
and walked away.
IT, part 3—playing chicken with the devil
Lots of boys at our school played chicken
the shifting pecking order of coward and stud
beating a dark bass note in the cold current
of doubt that flowed through their hearts.
One boy lost a game of Russian roulette
for real,
a revolver, six chambers, one bullet
loaded, then spun so no one knew
where it was hiding, the gun
went hand to hand to hand, following the snake-
smoke path of the bong,
laughing, basement smelling of mold
and boy farts, cheap beer, and the gun goes click,
to the next hand click, to the next hand
before the laughter fades,
BAM.
It didn’t kill him. He was smart
enough to tilt the barrel at an obtuse
angle, so the bullet only stole his memories
chewed through his charm and blinded him.
He was a quiet, kind fixture
in the empty garage
where we smoked between classes,
sheltered from the cold,
his black hair long to cover the scars,
white cane in his hand,
old friends standing guard.
Lots of boys at my school played chicken,
countless varieties of the game.
The boy who raped me
on the rocks by the creek
got drunk and lay down
twenty-eight nights later
on a dark country road
he played chicken with the devil,
daring the car that couldn’t see him
to flinch first, to prove him brave
and noble.
I didn’t speak up
when that boy raped me, instead I scalded
myself in the shower and turned
me into the ghost of the girl
I once was, my biggest fear
being that my father,
no stranger to gaming
with the devil,
would kill that boy
and it would be my fault.
But that boy who raped me
on the rocks by the creek
got drunk and lay down
on a dark night to play
chicken with the devil
and he lost.
I begged my father
to take me to the funeral. I lied
and said that boy was my friend.
He looked at me sharply,
my ice-eyed father
my gentle-hearted father, he heard
something in my voice
but after one searing glance, he shut
down the inquiry
wrote the note
got me out
of school and walked with me
to the graveside on
a gray September day cut by winter’s
promise in the wind.
My father kept his arm
around my shoulders, while I cried
so hard I turned myself inside
out, so grateful IT was gone
and it was over.
I did not know
that the haunting
had just begun.
clocks melting on the floor
I didn’t think about pregnancy
for weeks, when it finally hit me
I puked and cried, afraid
that I was puking
cuz there was a baby
but the next day I bled
a stormy river, so grateful
didn’t think about STIs
didn’t know what they were
to be honest
after I was raped
I could hardly think at all
because feelings hid in the closet,
under the bed, shadow-cloaked
and hungry, dark mountains
and oceans of noise threatened
to spill over if I opened
my mouth, I was afraid
I’d never stop screaming
pain management
My parents drank fury and gin
when we lived in places
quick-rented, half-furnished
with couches and beds that smelled
of strangers, the floors scrubbed
with regret.
A wolf, when wounded, retreats
to a dark place, burns out the injury
with fever, lies still so the bones
can knit back together,
or dies alone.
But we were not wolves.
We moved
and moved again, being not-wolves,
with our legs snapped in the metal
trap jaws, livers pecked each night
by eagles,
my parents broke
themselves on the wheels of time and
appearances, drunk
on gin and fury, they ossified.
Of course I got high.
buzzed
giggled
ate molasses cookies baked—ha, I said “baked”—
by my grandmother
drank music: Boston Bob Seger Black Sabbath
Blue Öyster Cult Supertramp Doobie Brothers
Allman Brothers Bill Withers Eagles
Stevie Wonder Steely Dan Ly
nyrd Skynyrd
Aerosmith
Temptations Santana Genesis Led Zeppelin
Fleetwood Mac
landsliding through my bones
sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow
I drew pictures
x-ed them, rejected them with a black magic
marker, threw them in the garbage
weed buzz dulled thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
the pain, verdigris skeleton key
turned in my brain’s rusty lock
I understood
I could fucking see the connections
’tween everything and everybody, the
four—
no, the five-dimensional chessboard
we danced on
I scribbled notes in crayon
messages in bottles cast
into the sea of me
then lost in the deep
I got high to escape
sat in sunshine, eyes closed
wanted to peel back my lids,
but I knew a girl who did that,
dead-crazy high on smack
(not weed)
she had pale eyes to begin with, almost as white
as her hair, so when she, dead-crazy high, opened
her eyes for a staring contest with the sun
the sun won
and she couldn’t see too good after that
but she got sober,
for sure
I kept my eyes closed
after smoking, usually fell asleep,
bored and stuck
in hardening concrete
up to my chin
ninth grade: my year of living stupidly
1. I forgot to go to class a lot, even for subjects like French and social studies that I enjoyed. When I remembered to go, it was hard to stay awake cuz I wasn’t sleeping good at night. At first I’d hide in the fantasy section of the library when I forgot to go to class. Then I met some kids who lived a few blocks from school and they were happy to share high afternoons listening to music with me, all of us pretending we weren’t doomed.
2. Concrete burns are lethal. Sneaky, too. Stick your hands or feet into wet concrete and it feels like a milkshake. You’d never guess you were going to need an amputation.
3. I didn’t have real friends because a friend is someone you trust and trust never came easy after that boy raped me. But I had people to get high with, people to share sandwiches with. Sometimes I had people to walk with in the halls. Being mocked doesn’t hurt as much when someone walks next to you. I was grateful for my almost-friends.
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