there was a little girl
you tried to see how long she could live
under your pressure
how hard you could push
despite the cracking sounds
the air bursting out of her body
you wanted to observe
her life force
whether she would fight
whether she deserved to live
the life you gave her
because it was yours
yours to give, yours to destroy
if you wanted to
what would it take
you cloaked her in the torn fabrics of your life
fighting your ghosts
ever-persistent
the horror leaking from your skin
how your mouth lost control
destruction is cradled by your bones
your bed is a trench
garland bodies
you grab her
put life in death’s place
she sits in it, lies in it
and you stew
she shivers in the accumulating aftermath
of your exit wounds, soaking her
and you never got over the premise
that a female body must absorb, must hold yours,
take yours back, take it back in,
take all of your wounds and heal you,
it never mattered that she was a child
she was a girl
that was the point
a girl carrying your war
a girl inheriting your war
a girl with a man’s body in hers
there was no more space for her
you pushed and pushed her against her own skin
smothering her
what was dead in life, alive in your head
you lay to rest in her
but it wreaked havoc
and you became a spectator, a visitor to your
externalised museum
look how courageous I am
and she turned into a war memorial in your honour
turned her into a mass grave
when she was so alive
your garbage in her body
and she’d grow
nothing ever disappeared
she forgot the sound of her own voice
what she had to say
the dead were too loud
Croque-Melpomene 