Читать книгу blud - Rachel McKibbens - Страница 11

three strikes

After Uncle Phil got

eight years

for coke possession

I inherited his bedroom,

a modest kingdom

magnificent in its starkness:

ball chain hanging

from exposed lightbulb,

narrow mattress

& weight-lifting bench,

its iron rings laced in dust.

Nights my struck face

throbbed, when

my body swelled blue

from every pore,

I’d lie in bed

& pray to vanish

closed my eyes

so tight I saw stars.

I wanted to become

the reversal of light,

to exist

only within the

hard-clenched black—

kindergarten pariah

with a sweet tooth for death.

There, at the end

of a smoke-stained

hallway, I discovered

the women,

bodies shelved

above the unworn

coats & flannel

button-ups.

Kitty. Crystal.

Heather. Ashley.

Vicky. Candy. Kim.

Feathered hair

& lip gloss,

pussies held open

by French manicures

they instructed me on

the body’s forbidden dialect,

the gospel of ecstasy,

how heat can ravage

from the inside out.

I’d practice in the closet.

Masturbated in the bathroom stall

at recess. Deep

in my sleeping bag

during slumber parties.

The Sunday school

cloakroom. Dentist’s

office. The backseat.

My middle finger,

a shriveled magician.

How else could I survive

the endless winter

of my childhood?

Hell-spangled girl

spitting teeth into the sink,

I’d trace the broken

landscape of my body

& find God

within myself.