“That One Time” said my mother

Children can be brutal

Pecking at wounds and ripping off broken limbs

to feed the pack of hungry who gather around the different ones

And I must have been a victim once with pieces of me passed around

From mouth to mouth until they all were satisfied

But I barely remember it

Or maybe I recall in my mind the telling of it more than the actual event

where I was painted a story with the details I've heard so many times

and convinced myself I remember it for myself

But I must have been there since I'm the main character

and it must have happened like she said since her details are so vivid

I was the one that was different, the one that got devoured by their laughter

This was the event that supposedly started it all

Years of disappointment and failure

Because she brought it up every time I turned out to look

like something she didn't want me to be

This is all because of that one time

That one time...

Just that one time way back when

When you wore pants to Sunday school and all the other girls wore dresses

And she heroically takes the blame and says it was her fault

"I should have known. Something told me to put you in a dress

and I didn't listen to that voice and now you are ruined

Now you will never be who you were supposed to be

Because now you want to look like the wicked world"

And I never understood the moral of her story

as she cried and she ripped me into small, chew-able pieces

and threw them into her mouth to devour me

one by one

piece by peice

until she was satisfied

until I look like she wanted me to and consisted of nothing