I’m thinking he could have done anything, fucked me or
masturbated on me or peed on me, I w ouldn’t know , I’m
feeling for semen or wet places with m y fingers but I can’t
m ove because m y throat can’t m ove or the pain implodes,
there can’t be a single tremor even, I can’t lift m yself up and I
know I’ll never know and I push it out o f m y mind, that I will
never know; I push it out and I am pulled under by the pain
because m y throat’s crushed into broken bits and it’s lit with
kerosene and the fire’s spreading up m y neck to m y brain, a
spreading field o f fire going up into m y cranial cavity and it’s
real fire, and probably the pain’s seeping out onto the floor and
spreading, it’s red and bloody or it’s orange and hot; penis
smashed me up; I fall back into the cold, black nothing,
grateful; and later I wake up, it’s night but I don’t know o f
what day except m y dog would’ve come by me, I’d remember
her by me, but I wake up and it’s hollow, m y life’s hollow, I
got an em pty life, I’m alive and it’s empty, she’s gone, I raise
m yself up on m y elbow and I look, I keep looking, there’s a
desolation beyond the burdens o f history, a sadness deeper
than any shame. I’ll take the physical pain, Lord, I deserve it,
double it, triple it, make it more, but bring her back, don’t let
him hurt her, don’t make her gone. I look, I keep looking, I
keep expecting her, that she will be there if I look hard enough
or God will hear me and the boy will walk through the door
saying he ju st walked her and I pray to just let him bring her
back, ju st let him walk in the door; ju st this; days could go by
and I w ouldn’t know ; he’ll be innocent in m y eyes, I swear. I
hallucinate her and I think she’s with me and I reach out and
she’s not real and then I fall back into the deep blackness and
when I wake up I look for her, I wait for her; I’m waiting for
her now. M y throat’s like some small animal nearly killed,
maimed for religious slaughter, a small, nearly killed beast, a
poor warm-blooded thing hurt by some ritual but I never
heard o f the religion, there’s deep sacrifice, deep pain. I can’t
move because the poor thing’d shake near to torture; it’s got to
stay still, the maimed thing. I couldn’t shout and I couldn’t cry
and I couldn’t whisper or moan or call her name, in sighs, I
couldn’t whisper to m yself in sighs. I couldn’t swallow or
breathe. I sat still in m y own shit for some long time, many,
many days, some months o f days, and I rocked, I rocked back
and forth on m y heels, I rocked and I held m yself in m y arms, I
didn’t move more than to rock and I didn’t wash and I didn’t
say nothing. I swallowed down some water as I could stand it,
I breathed when I could, not too much, not too soon, not too
hard. If he put semen on me it’s still there, I wear it, whatever
he did, if he did it I carry it whatever it is, I don’t know, I w on’t
ever know, whatever he did stays done, anything he tore stays
