I look at the food you provide with ongoing screams
I put it in my body
and I make myself guilty
you owe me
*
after school
I walk through the supermarket
with two trolleys
for two different households
both broken
and a calculator
a budget and a threat
you owe me
*
divorced, barely alone, letting things die slowly
you took dolls with a pulse to bed
meat in your arms, meat against your muscles expanding
and she fell asleep with a man who thought that he never went too far
you owe me
*
I came home, I had done what I had wanted to do
and you vandalised what belonged to me
without showing your face you poisoned me with shame
because my body was a body that you had created
you owe me
*
where were you when he took from me
what the world had taken from him
where were you when he taught me
how to read his body, serve his gluttony
where were you when he pulled me in
when he died and I could not speak
you owe me
*
a grown man’s hand on a girl’s throat
I am everything they discard
I am hidden, I store breath somewhere in my body
I will take care of myself later
these gentle words hurt, these whispered instructions
the guiding hand, the dead soul insisting, out of his mouth
where were you when he was the one enjoying my childhood
you owe me
*
I sought what he had shown me in people my age
and I felt so wise, so experienced for my age
I had been part of a secret world that everybody denied
my hands were not mine, he held them for me
I inhale his breaths that overwhelm me
and he stores himself in my body
this is love, child, this is happiness, child
you owe me
*
I grow into a secret that must not speak
Croque-Melpomene 