[by the time i was old enough to no longer be watched but young enough to be left out of conversations, the babysitter was doing heroin. i know because i heard. another thing i heard: there are two ways to be found on the side of the road. dead or almost dead. the babysitter was found the second way.]
HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Liam drowned the summer before in the same lake, and it was the first time I was handed the responsibility of death like a heavy and wailing newborn. Most times, when we name tragedy like this, as a plot point, it is to center the dead in ourselves, illuminate their legacy and demise as an opportunity to teach the listener about who we have become.
And yes, that is true. But the reason I tell you about Liam’s body, discovered by a fisherman, dear reader, is to help you understand the fabric of the air the first time I returned to the site of his grave. I want to note that it was not intended to be that, a revisiting, a memorial, but that the pollution of death is thick and unforgiving. I want you to understand why this story remains loud in the legend of my life, and somehow, the nature of his going makes it so.
When Eric, whose first three fingers had been cut off in his father’s butcher shop, or lost in a knife fight, depending on who you ask, puts me on the black, rubber tube, pulls me by his Jet Ski in zigzags across the surface, I decide to let go before being thrown, and, like a lucky stone, or nameless pebble, depending on who you ask, I skip and tumble and come up stripped clean, clothed in bruises, treading in his wake.
When I go into the water to pee the boys swim behind me and yank me under by my hair, hold me there until I pretend to go limp. Aaron shits and, when it comes up floating, throws it into the bushes.
JoJo and I fuck in the tent and he doesn’t finish, throws an empty condom into the dirt and the next morning, as we shove newspaper into the firepit, Eric finds the rubber and puts it on his own dick, dances around the growing fire, and somehow, now, everyone has been inside me.
Before leaving, the boys decide we need liquor for the road, but we have no money so Aaron suggests we pull a runner at the mini-mart and I agree to stay in the car while they go inside, and, in case you haven’t caught on, I am not wearing any clothes, just a striped string bikini, because that’s how they like it, and when JoJo comes sprinting back, he says Eric got locked inside the store and tosses a twelve-pack of High Life into my arms, tells me to run, and so, I do, down an alley, barefoot and damp, and it’s not long before the owner of the shop, a woman in a blue Mustang, comes peeling through the dust and traps me between her headlights and a cement wall and the boys are gone and she tells me to walk to the road, while she trails behind, the hot gravel bullying my feet, and I wait on the shoulder for the police and still the boys have disappeared, a story I am not unfamiliar with here. It seems, somehow, Elephant Butte Lake has made a hobby out of taking my boys and leaving me to carry the weight.
Here is the best part.
The woman takes my photo and tells me I am banned from the town, her store, the water, even the highway that slices through, and I say,
You mean I don’t have to come back?
And she says,
Never. Never let me see your face here again.
MANS/LAUGHTER
I told a joke to the babysitter’s father & he laughed
so hard he fell off the swing. He laughed so hard
he asked me to come inside.
The first time a boy kissed me, his friends laughed,
their torsos throbbing to the same beat, while he lodged
his tongue inside my throat until I choked.
Laughter requires modification in our breathing patterns.
EXAMPLE: WHILE I STRUGGLE TO BREATHE, SO DOES THE MAN.
At the bakery where I work, my boss asks me to visit
him in his office three times a day, where he details
the things he would like to do to my teenage body.
Today, a policeman sits next to him. When my boss says,
I would fuck you against a wall, the cop laughs
so hard he has to hold on to his duty belt.
The boys make it a game to throw me off the Jet Ski
as close to the rocks as they can get without killing me.
The boys make it a game to leave me in the park at night
until I think they’re not coming back.
The boys make it a game to hold me underwater.
Laughter does not replace a sentence, it punctuates it.
Where someone might pause to cough or breathe,
laughter takes its place.
EXAMPLE: WHERE I GASP FOR AIR, THE MAN LAUGHS.
WHERE I BARTER, THE MAN LAUGHS.
WHERE I SCREAM, THE MAN LAUGHS.
At the house party, I am asleep in the guest room.
I am woken up by pain. On the floor, there is a boy
I do not know, with his hand reaching up towards
the bed, his fingers shoved inside me, pulsing.
He is not looking at me.
He might as well be fumbling for his keys in the dark.
I leave the room wrapped in a sheet.
The boys at the party
love this—a panicked girl, naked under their linens.
When I tell them, they storm the bedroom,
pick the boy up by his arms and legs
like a heavy net of dead mackerel,
and toss him out onto the porch.
They are laughing so hard
they cannot ask me if I am okay. They cannot help me
find my clothes.
The boys make it a game.
My boyfriend laughs
while another man claims
the name of the West Mesa Bone Collector.
He tells us he can lead us to the bodies
and my boyfriend laughs harder.
I am screaming behind my boyfriend’s locked door
When I get out, his roommate sits on the sofa, laughing
at the television, turned all the way up.
Years later, the roommate sees me at a bar.
He does not say hello. Just laughs and says,
If I had a girl who looked like you,
I would’ve locked her in my room too.
Laughter is not about humor,
it is about acknowledging a shared joy.
Laughter is about bonding.
EXAMPLE: WHEN I HEAR MEN LAUGHING,
I DO NOT ENTER THE ROOM.
I CRAWL HOME IN THE DARK.
THE LOVER AS A CULT
And I am humming
in an ankle-length cotton dress,
hanging sheets to dry on a thin wire.
A group of girls with swollen
nipples braid each other’s hair
while you watch, nod and direct
their fingers over and through,
over and through,
even the memory of their muscles
must be unlearned and retaught
by your singular truth—how to hold
a spoon or crack an egg.
We are sitting on the cusp of Spring.
We are always sitting on the cusp of Spring.
I remember what it was like
to be them—the girls—
pungent and ripe and apologizing
for every audible movement
but also looking out at the infinite tongue
of a middle-America highway and feeling joy.
I don’t know what happened.
Maybe, the only reason we fall in love
is to see what we look like to someone else.
I reme
mber when I first came here,
you told me the laundry was my duty.
You said you liked how precise I was
with cloth, praised the way I hung and folded.
I developed an affinity for bedding.
And after the night of drying,
we would unclip the sheets from the line,
lay them out on the field,
make love and fall asleep in the breeze,
all before even going inside.
We never had any clean sheets.
It was our favorite joke.
Soon, you stopped caring and I lost purpose.
I waxed and waned into a cup of bitter tea.
I have started to meditate
on all of the other things
I can do with a sheet.
How I can twist it to be rope
or drape it over my sitting body.
When you told me that you admired
the way I scrubbed a toilet, I heard,
Everything you touch becomes new.
When you told me to kill the chickens,
though I had never so much
as swatted an insect, I practiced
wringing my own ankles.
I am afraid that outside of here
is just another here. I am afraid
I will spend the rest of my life
hoping to build myself
in the vision of someone else.
What am I, if not yours?
What do I do with my hands
when they are just hands?
THE SUMMER OF 2008 AT ALTURA PARK
after Hanif Abdurraqib
The boys took me to the corner of the park
that was most hidden by trees to tell me the news.
Are you going to kill me? I joked and they
each pulled a handful of grass from the ground
and shoved it into their mouths.
I waited in silence while they looked at me
the same way my father did
when I choked on a piece of bread at dinner.
What happened was, Aaron said.
While you were away, Eric continued.
It wasn’t that big of a deal, JoJo choked out
like a skipped rock across the river of his throat.
Your boyfriend left the party with a girl
and this time, this time he came back
covered in blood, his shirt was soaked,
he threw it away, drank whiskey for the rest of the night
half-naked. When we asked what happened
he said she got a bloody nose,
said she got her period, said she was a virgin,
said she liked the pain, said sometimes you can fuck
a girl so hard you break something
no other man could reach.
I waited for them to finish,
like I often did then with men, to stop speaking
of this girl who I imagined
must have been a blonde.
And when they sealed the confession,
I wove my fingers together in my lap
like a patient wife, knitting her own body,
pushed the girl back down to the bottom of the river,
said, What do you mean, “this time”?
THE LOVER AS TAPEWORM
everything
i put inside
of myself
somehow
ends up
inside
of you
instead
& so
you
grow
& i
shrink
& don’t
notice
until
my best
friend
draws
me
from
the side
just by
running
a fine-tipped
pen down
a sheet of
white paper.
you walk
into a house
& swallow
all of the
furniture.
i fell
in love
with you
at parties.
when you
laughed
at my jokes,
the sound
lived
inside
of me
for weeks.
i can’t tell
the
difference
between
my
thoughts
& your voice.
my intestines
& you.
how is it
possible
that you
are both
my joy
& the taker
of it?
i told you
that when
i’m sad
i do not
eat. you
said you
did not
love me
& i let
the forks
turn to rust.
you came
to the door
with
sinking
eyes &
a dry
tongue
& begged
me to
put something
inside
of myself
to make
you fat
again,
you said,
send me
a picture
of every
meal
& another
of your
clean plate.
i said,
okay
okay
okay
i will.
& so
i boiled
some
spinach
& snapped
a photo,
then
slid it
into
the dog’s
bowl,
walked
to your
apartment
& left
the bare
dish
at
your
feet.
[once, the babysitter smashed her father’s hand in the hinges of her bedroom door. when he emerged from inside their dark & air-conditioned home, his knuckles swathed in boxing tape, he used his good hand to point to his teenage daughter. i waited until bedtime to ask my parents why. i couldn’t imagine then, in my small body, what it meant to make a rage move. it was then i learned the word hormones, my father dealt the name & repeated it again, teenage hormones. i imagined it must be a spell, the flick of a witch’s wrist & suddenly you wish your own kin bloody, you wish his fingers gone limp.]
give me a pill
for old wounds
for the company
of parrots I lug
in my sternum
something to smother
the brag of their beaks
and then, something
to make a song
of silence, a pill
to pluck what leeches
onto my skin
before sleep
a pill to drain
the weight
of water
how heavy it is
to have lived.
SOUND BITES WHILE WE PONDER DEATH
I tell my lover, as we walk through a parking garage,
that if I ever leave
to park the car alone and don’t return in five minutes,
come looking for me.
I read that [runningtrailsparkinggaragessouthcarolinabedroomsvacations] are the [sixthfourthsecondfirstninth] most common place for women to be murdered
is something I tell her often to statistically justify my need
for company in benign places.
But there are cameras, she says, pointing to the white globes
of God’s eyes
perched in every crevice, always looking in my direction.
That won’t stop someone from murdering me, I say, it’ll just tell you who did it.
She pauses for a moment, as if to consider the footage,
the aerial view of my unmaking.
But maybe the fact that someone is watching will stop them.
Maybe, I say. But I am aways stunned by the fearlessness
of violent men.
The garage door screams and swallows itself open.
Life of the Party Page 5