I guess I’ve never really loved it
I’ve shaved and smothered it
burned and cut it
either with a lover’s mouth or a buzzing toy I aptly named Hume
meaning… “from the cave”
but never truly loved it
but now I can’t keep my hands off it
I’m entitled to it
this chaos
this love that’s so damn altered, reformed, transformed, remodeled and stunning
it’s turned into something resembling honey i
t started at age 4
when he was left in charge
he and his wife
it started with a kiss
his tongue
my mouth
his hands
a tug
his cock
in me
forcing open
the only innocence
I’d ever get
after that
a haze …
a cloud
dirty uniform
powdered milk
waiting for school to end
for the girls to stop scratching my face
for the girls to stop hating me
[it’s like they knew]
he’d lead me through crowds
through food vendors
buy me fruity ice and sticky sweets
to ease the pain
to help me forgive him
he’d pay the bus to take the old decrepit bumpy road home
holding my thigh
my heart
my purity “you’re my favourite”, he’d say
“mi favorite de todas.”
there were others
so many others I forget their names
[he always told us our parents knew]
I wish he’d stop loving me
fucking loving me
STOP FUCKING LOVING ME
so that I can love myself
[he killed the fuse inside me]
I can’t relay
in vivid detail how it happened
because honestly
I don’t remember
I did that purposely
to help my smile remain intact
I just remember the urge to touch it
to rub it
to make it feel
like he’d make it feel
impulsively
imagine
oversexed at age 5
like a tug
a tug
tug
tug
t u g g i n g at my core
begging to be let out into fresh air
“I’m suffocating!”
“I can’t breath!”
I need to do it, you see
I need to do T H I S
It has its own heartbeat
its own soul
it thinks outside itself
it’s not me anymore
the days turn to years
my hair grows past my ass
and my fingernails are red
it’s enflamed now
this button
this slit
but it hides in cotton
in his hands
but there’s another kind of war going on
outside that dark house
with all us children still fighting the fight silently
there’s men walking around in dirty green uniforms
spitting and cursing
guarding our safety
even though I feel dirty and flawless
alive and dead
I wonder what it feels like
to have those metralletas
slung over sore shoulders
and a list of battles behind me
[oh, but I do]
I wanna go to the carnival
it’s in town now
and the clowns and the trapeze artists make everything better
it’s all make believe
they make everything better
but just like that
when it couldn’t get worse
it did indeed get better
I didn’t even pack
just the clothes on my back
left my toys and my memories behind in that house my father built
left my friends who would grow up to be something I would never recognize
I watched him grow smaller and smaller
as we drove away from the war
inside me
outside me
and down below
the wars that made this little girl
a woman
