Every Body Looking

by Candice Iloh

but maybe this is something I could try

  I would hear them talk and talk

  about who taught what

  whose class was the hardest

  how long they were training

  would eyeball their beautiful bodies

  their sculpted arms

  firm thighs

  told myself I wanted that

  I wanted to be that

  I wanted to make my body do that

  too

  I don’t know what you’re supposed to do

  when you come across something you aren’t

  supposed to be watching

  when all of a sudden you see something

  that might be someone else’s secret

  like something tucked inside a pocket

  something pressed underneath a bed

  something within a locked notebook

  something kept behind a cracked door

  but there are mirrors everywhere

  surrounding and following a body

  a girl who isn’t expecting

  to be seen

  I’m sure making a sound

  I’m sure exposing yourself

  isn’t what you do

  no

  definitely not that

  Dad always used to say that I don’t know where my mouth is

  so when I go to take that last big sip

  from my water bottle, missing

  my mouth

  it was no surprise

  to feel the cold splash

  come down

  my chin

  come down

  my neck

  then soak

  my chest

  and though

  it’d already happened

  trying to stop it

  I jump

  knocking the door

  I was hiding behind

  further open

  loudly

  looking back up

  to her stopped

  standing still

  staring back at me

  We couldn’t have been staring

  at each other

  for more than five seconds

  five seconds

  is all it really takes

  to blow a first impression

  to remember a face

  I don’t think I’ve ever turned

  around so fast as I do today

  not stopping when behind me

  I think I hear the girl say something like

  wait

  or maybe she’s telling me

  that I shouldn’t have been here

  that this isn’t my space

  I don’t wait to find out

  or look back to see if she’s

  standing there

  watching me run off

  after she’s caught me

  studying her

  like a creep

  Too many things creep into my dreams

  that night

  the fact

  that in the next bed

  there is a girl I

  I share a room with

  sleeping

  the fact

  that she’s probably already

  got plans to bring one of those boys

  she met

  back here soon

  the fact

  that I ran away the first chance

  I got to make a new friend

  today

  and stupidly

  made my first gyno appointment ever

  at the student health clinic

  for tomorrow

  I’d never done it before

  but all the signs

  in my new dorm

  tell me everybody’s been

  doing something I haven’t

  figure that it is something

  that might happen soon

  figure I should go

  to the school clinic anyway, ya know

  before I even thought

  about doing it, already

  seeing these posters in the stairway

  pamphlets on the way through campus

  talking about knowing

  your status, and

  how we could catch

  anything on contact, and

  making sure

  you’re clean

  now having to share showers

  a nasty bathroom

  and a whole floor with

  girls I don’t know

  an old twin bed that on sight makes me itch

  with all its . . . history

  I make my appointment the first sign I see

  cause for students it’s free

  and clean? I already feel

  anything but

  I heard

  you’re supposed to go

  when you turn eighteen or

  or when you’ve stopped being

  a good girl

  well I’m eighteen now and

  I guess it’s time

  so I walk into that old

  brick building that smelled of

  latex and cough syrup

  on the corner

  of Shaw and Fourth street

  so they could look at me

  make sure everything’s

  all right

  make sure

  I’m normal

  cause this is what I’m supposed

  to be doing at eighteen

  taking care of things

  taking every step to be safe

  9:00 AM is when they told me to be here

  now checked in

  sitting in a chair

  waiting for someone

  to call my name

  ask me questions

  about what I’ve done

  just the way

  Mama has always

  accused me, they’ll ask

  who I’ve done it with

  cause doctors get to ask

  those kinds of things

  so when they call me

  I follow the nurse to the back

  prepare for the routine

  feeling like

  a real college girl

  who’s doing it right

  Fifteen minutes later the questions are over

  and I’m on my back

  here like I have to be

  but suddenly my body is so dangerous

  I can’t control it

  they’ve called back the nurse

  to give me her hand

  and she obeys

  just beneath this gown

  nothing but my naked body

  spread for the woman with gloves

  a light shining bright

  enough to see the place

  where I am both dead and alive

  my heels rest

  in the plastic cups along

  each side of her

  she tells me

  we are going to do this

  my body, having heard this demand before

  begins to kick from its bottom

  begins its convulsions

  begins its ritual

  where nothing can numb me

  where I am possessed by my own fear

  Before I can take this back

  I see that I am already here

  I am already naked

  I have already said yes to

  this thing women who’ve come

  of age must do

  before we can waste

  any more time

  she is already two gloved fingers inside me

  probing for a
nything

  abnormal

  I have already tightened

  my fist, purpling the nurse’s fingers

  a little girl who lives inside me

  is demanding that this stops

  feels knives clawing at her middle

  is wondering if it will always

  feel like the first time

  someone touched me

  inside

  There are things they tell you get easier with time

  that one day you’ll grow up

  and be able to take it all

  they say this is what you have to do

  to be an adult

  this is what you have to do

  to survive

  you will not own your body

  you will not own your things

  you will not own your feelings

  you belong to the world

  to them

  to Him

  No one told me

  that the room would be this small

  that I would be this small

  that the nurse would treat me small

  would ask me questions

  about the first time

  and this would be my first time

  so I would have nothing to say

  and they would keep asking

  they would laugh in my swelling face

  they would ask me more questions

  my pounding head would spin

  I would wet the table beneath it

  my knees would become a tremble

  the nurses would look up

  beyond my unyielding body

  they would ask me

  if somebody

  had ever touched me

  down there

  Down there

  is forbidden

  is a safe with no key

  is a hazard

  is a pit bull’s jaw snapped

  is a venus flytrap

  is a danger zone

  is a dungeon

  is a clenched fist

  is a place you don’t touch

  is a place he touched anyway

  is a place I could not talk about

  is a private thing

  is secret

  is unknown

  is reason my head

  hung low, leaving

  my eyes only

  proud enough

  to trace

  my feet

  FIRST GRADE

  Ever since I could remember

  Dad

  had a problem with me

  staying too long at Granny’s house

  said

  a lot of people

  go in and out of there

  said

  the people on the first floor

  never saw what happened

  upstairs

  said

  I don’t feel good

  about you staying overnight

  but I would beg

  and he would

  say

  okay

  It was okay

  to do a lot of secret things

  in Granny’s eight-bedroom house

  this old three-story box of stuff

  where Mama had most of her firsts

  we would slide down the stairs

  lying on our backs

  we would hide in forts built

  from pee-stained mattresses in the tv room

  we would sneak and eat the penny candy

  Granny sold to all the kids on the block

  we would play every game

  we could make up from morning

  till it was dark

  What was with adults

  and upstairs

  and behind closed doors

  and with the lights turned off

  they all seemed afraid

  or oblivious

  to the violently joyous

  things young boys and girls

  could do that mimicked

  their mothers and fathers

  the rhythmic squeak

  of a bedspring

  when all eyes in the house were shut

  the front door cracking

  to usher in

  a stranger’s sneakers from

  the outside

  when anything of the night

  could be brought in like dust

  But this dust was a boy

  coming through the door in the dead of night just to lay down, he said

  but began to press a hard thing against me the darkness

  giving him permission to touch my everything this time

  a thing Daddy said grown-ups should never touch but what was my

  cousin? a grown-up? a man. and I? a girl? six?

  a kid. said this was to be kept under my bathing suit

  under my panties my cousin, having different parents mustn’t have

  learned

  the same thing

  said

  hushmoveyourhand

  openyourlegs

  doesthisfeelgood

  I said

  no.

  After that night I don’t like

  any of my clothes

  all of them beginning

  to fit too tight

  around my chest and thighs

  my belly poking out

  a little at the bottom

  my butt becoming

  big enough to see

  big enough for boys

  to try and squeeze cheeks

  slyly as they walk past

  another hush game

  I suddenly hate

  these matching short sets

  Daddy bought me

  in pink, purple, red

  none of it screams

  loud enough

  none of it screams

  hands off

  this girl

  all of it making it

  too easy to see

  what I got

  underneath

  Days later Daddy drops me off at Granny’s again

  and we are playing some type of game

  my cousins do not explain, but begin to

  play when all the grown-ups are out

  to play this game all you need is your

  body and questions like what if and

  what would you do if I and how come

  cousin asks me what would you do if

  I squeezed your titties right now and

  everyone laughs at this strange joke

  I laugh not understanding the question

  not understanding the test, I look him

  in the eye, mean like Daddy taught me

  and tell him

  I would slap you

  My daddy never said

  it was good to fight

  but if someone was

  stupid enough to put

  their finger in my mouth

  they are looking

  for me to bite

  SECOND GRADE

  Tonight Daddy and I enter

  this strange building

  we have never been to

  where he holds my hand and

  says nothing

  I know this means

  we’re going somewhere

  I would refuse to go

  had I known before this minute

  he tells me we are going

  to the eighth floor and then

  lets me press the number

  eight

  as if this will feel like

  some kind of accomplishment

  as if this will take my mind
<
br />   from this dark unknown place

  The eighth floor

  is a place where we’re welcomed only by the ding

  of this slow and dim elevator that Daddy

  still holds my hand strangely in

  my hand becoming a damp home

  of all of my questions

  I know we’re getting closer

  to wherever we’re going

  after the eighth beep

  and a quick bouncing jerk

  where this lifting thing stops rising

  right after the jerk the silver doors

  that have been protecting

  me and Daddy all this way split open

  releasing us to what looks like

  somebody’s house

  There are two couches

  and a chair

  black and

  leather

  a glass table

  with all

  kinds

  of magazines, these

  are something

  to

  do while we

  wait for

  whatever

  is coming, I

  tell Daddy

  that

  I’m scared

  and that

  I

  want to go

  home and

  think to tell him

  I take back

  whatever

  I said

  the other day

  Daddy gives my hands a quick

  squeeze and says,

  it’s okay, Nwa m,

  you can tell

  Doctor Matthew

  all about how

  you’re scared

  you can tell the doctor

  whatever you want

  Before I can cry

  and tell Daddy that

  he should have told me

  that we were going to the

  doctor, that

  he should have told me

  we were coming here

  where a man named Matthew

  is going to get to ask me

  all kinds of questions

  about things

  I don’t know, that

  he should have told me

  so I could tell him

  I don’t want to go to

  some doctor with a name