Childhood is a voice that I’m unburying until my vocal cords hurt.
Memory is a companion who leaves me hanging in a labyrinth.
The past is a cemetery with bells and drums and without bodies.
The bedroom that I grew up in collapses beneath the weight of
Controversial furnitureless historical traces. We lost one another.
The window in my mother’s bathroom -it’s not hers anymore-
Which held my head like a magical lamp, like a guillotine,
Releasing steam, releasing guilt, releasing dreams into the wilderness,
Still frames my throat with its cold air, the scent of the garden, clutching.
My grandfather’s urn still stares at me, begs me from the chest of drawers,
Containing the things that survived the owner, sombre and affectionate.
The basement which frightened me, its yellow wet heavy odour,
Where my clothes get washed and cleaned, where threats are uttered voicelessly,
With imagery, hammered into my brain, on paper, on a door,
In transition, punishment awaiting, my bones, the tunnel of misfortunes,
The war in a body, divorced from history, the room full of letters,
The room full of useful instruments and obsolete decorations,
I still run up the stairs into someone’s arms.
Doors which the wind slammed shut, the sensation my father left behind,
Heart tightly shut, overfired, overburdened, fury, shut, run away,
The sound warns me, there will be consequences, someone grabs
The object now, as I prepare myself, as I write, now, someone is getting ready
To chase me around, to perform the release of disappointment and self-loathing.
My body, my presence, make it burst, bring it out, the compartmentalised inner truths.
Men rubbing against me. Men trying to rid my lungs of air.
I am trying to understand who they are. What they want. From me.
And I give them everything. Every single piece of my body that does the trick.
That saves me. That satisfies them. And I bleed and cannot cover up the orchestral wounds.
That were demanded, that I seemed to offer, that I thought were necessary,
Natural, what girls do, what children do, what your daughters do,
To save themselves, save you, each and every day anew, a piece of my flesh,
A fragment of my spirit, on my knees I bring myself back together
Because you spit me out, my belongings, you absorb them, reject them,
And I am beneath you with my mouth open, hands eager to recollect,
Rebuild, I always did, I always reerected myself, under your regime,
And you put your desires and wishes in-between my lips
And I swallowed death and the way you abused my name and
What it stands for.
Croque-Melpomene 