to myself, “forget me”
it is five thousand years ago
and I am in that house in the cul-de-sac
at the end of the hill
with my head smashed against the stucco mantle
and the fire poker lain
across the blacks and blues of my skin.
best case,
I am scenery,
my sallow skin a distasteful décor.
sometimes, I am the hallway vase,
shattered in a drunken rage,
and other times still,
I am entrepreneurship at its finest:
shaking, sobbing, screaming services
(--goods? there is nothing good inside me)
exchanged for a price.
take off your pants to make me happy,
he said,
and I ran until my eyes fogged
and my mouth filled
with the taste of beige shag carpet.
I woke to fingers in my mouth
and a stranger promising
to pay extra if I screamed.
biting down until I tasted blood,
I had my first,
and lost my first tooth.
he hosed me down in the backyard
late at night so no one saw,
told me I was finally worth his fucking time.
sitting in class the next day,
mouth swollen and sore,
I told my teacher I'd broken it on a spoon.
she gave me a cup of pudding
and I threw up in the bathroom.
the cost of business has been such:
SSRIs, SNRIs, some blend of horse tranq
and rohypnol;
sad poems scrawled in the margins
of past-due homework;
concussions and broken bones written off
as kids playing rough;
the psych evaluation that I'm just being difficult
because of the divorce.
once, I was a victim,
but now I am a whore.
I sell my tragedy to the highest bidder,
flaunting trauma like badges of honor.
I hide my face behind the courage
that could have saved me,
had I ever had it.
I am damaged goods:
a woman who flirts with death.
twelve years since
and four--
alcohol poisonings,
botched hangings,
barbiturates flushed down the toilet,
pistols fellated--
and countless threats later,
I'm here.
the scars have sunken through my skin,
but I feel them all the same.
when I tell someone,
they don't know what to say,
and I don't know what I want to hear.
it was five thousand years ago,
but I can't get far enough away.