I trusted you when you told me
That I was made out of monsters
And dying things. That bits and pieces
Of me were trashed alongside the road.
That I was a girl to fall apart, step by step.
Short-lived, ever single part of me.
You sucked it right out of me, you
Thought, what I had to offer, naked, inside,
Gutted, visceral, silent, objectified, subjected to you.
You burned my body with the same wounds
That can be found on yours, the perfect duplication,
The double persona that can be littered, treated like
Dirt, an ejection, slowly wasting away, discarded.
You landed on my skin, everything you loathed,
Everything you wanted to get rid of, onto me,
The body you created with death in mind, me,
Look at me, I say, look at me, I dare you, now.
I rose out of your wastelands indeed, I climbed out
Of you and what you wanted me to be, speechless,
On my knees, the rosary around my throat, no, father, no,
I have nothing to confess and the whole world to eject, out
Of my mouth, imitating your actor’s voice.
You gave birth to half-lives within me.
Left them nameless, they never grew old enough.
Meaningful enough to you. I had an entire graveyard
Within me as a child. Orphans, orgasms, ghosts, corpses,
Buried together, disassembled, deemed used and useless,
Under your regime, the antiquity, you constructed fragility,
Made me out of shards, shattered inside, I had to live,
I found glue for the time being, that was the first step, one.
There was more to come. You needed me in pieces.
I know the blows you distribute. You need me in such
A way so that you can produce your magic, so that you
Can remain the master, so that your hubris is underanged.
I deranged you, father, didn’t I? I was on your mind,
Absent or present. The thorn in your eye. The fruit
That you never ceased to squeeze, so hard, I stemmed
From the pit of your gut, your pumping heart of envy,
Of bitterness, scorn, you wanted to rob me, you tried.
You waited for the ghosts within me to become dolls.
You needed me to not be haunted, reminded, you hurt them
Whilst they were alive, a memory that nobody remembers,
Then you choked them, erased them, sent them back into me,
There to die, there to fall into muteness, scrutiny, litany, mutilation.
I held them there, father, I held them there like a mother.
I nurtured them still. You didn’t exorcise me. No. I was giving life,
Still. And you couldn’t see. And I couldn’t for a while, but I cooked.
Within me, nothing grew stagnant. I ran with the wolves within my own
Skin. And you were blind. I took the fragility you inflicted and moulded
It with my own two hands, and I created synergy.
Croque-Melpomene 