at 17 and a little more

at 17 and healthy,
life tight around my heart-
i thought i had repressed all memories of shoelaces
tight round my wrists.

-

in the middle of the night when
i wake up to the stinging dark, ceiling fan
sounding like my mother's
bangles -not really sleep walking, coming for me

i feel in my mouth- the gag's
in place it coudntve been a nightmare.i feel between
my legs and i remember sobbing in the toilet.i remember
pieces of me in the backyard.the draining
of everything in the bathtub. drying my eyes into a
solar eclipse and
my empty bed tells me its
just the sound of blades cutting
through air.

-

i was celebrating my forgetfulness when it leaked through
the letters.pity crawling into my life via holes and fault
lines that was me in a red dress being
uncle so-and-so's doll. that was me in his bed that was me
purpled by father that was me shivers running up my
downside that was me rancid, changed.

-

that was me-
soft toys sick of me eating them
out classmates sick of me in my corner
going off on tangents when asked about the
ink on skin which wasnt really so. i sat on my hands
for days as if it could save my ass and when none of
these helped that was me in hate. sweet love
was always a transferred epithet, and impossible.

-

my mother is an indian and foolish.she thinks its
the Gods im angering, its the Gods in plural
that take it out on her through my clobbering father
and the failing me.
i show her how tiny my ears are and she says a silent
prayer like indians who know people with tiny ears die
early.my father thinks im too young to have a lover,
and too bruised. he's a happy man.

-

at 17 and healthy i still sit
in the bathtub all day on national
holiday number 2- that was me making peace
with his body, i think, hiding the SOS sign forever
under my eyelids (this is me recalling a death).
eyes closed, i see it now

in the bathtub, and yell at mother saying- we all have a
lost and found chamber somewhere in our bodies. 'stop being a
scream' , she yells back- and there's a leak again.

that was me not knowing what i had had until a few
months ago that was me with a mirror trying to
look inside me thinking about it, that was me
finding nothing but fluid white
lies that was me being a molested child.

-

my heart has left to play with the
children and i begged it to never return.i let go of the time
i realized that my mother is more patient
with her sewing machine than with
her child's panic attacks i let go of the
SOS sign only i could see i let
go of the panic attacks.

at 17 and a half this
is me a long-ago adult, spread across red river
with the last red ribbon i've ever had, and
the last letters i'd ever hidden under my
bed beyond all memory under my thighs.
one says 'dear mother i think im leaking
am i going to die?' that was me too young
to ask.
but oh God, i think its leaking
and its about time.

-----------------------------------------------------------

er. this is me writing on one of those topics i'd usually avoid because i cant do justice, really. but it wasnt forced, even if it seems so in some bits. er. forgive me.
also, this is fiction.