Mercy

sores, the lips o f your labia get boils, big boils; you got a

vagina with long, deep tears, an ass that rips open with blood

every time you shit, because it’s the penis again, oversized,

pulling out after haying torn its w ay in; and then you will

remember rape; these are the elements o f m em ory, constant,

true, and perpetual pain and otherwise you will forget— we are

a legion o f zombies— because it burns out a piece o f your

brain, it’s the scorched earth policy for the sweetmeat in your

head, the rape recipe, braise, sear, burn bare, there’s a sudden

conflagration on the surface o f your brain, a piece o f one

hemisphere or the other is burned bare, blank, and you lose

w hatever’s there; ju st gone; whatever; so rape’s a tw o-

pronged attack, on your body, in you, on your brain, in you;

on freedom, on memory; you might as well bury yourself in

the backyard, or throw yourself in a trash can, you’re like

some dumb cat or dog that got hit by a car, run over and died;

only they let the shells o f dead girls walk around because hell it

makes no difference to them if what they stick it in is living or

dead; w hat’s left, darling, is fine, according to the formula, a

girl frail and female, a skeleton with a fleshy pudendum, ready

to serve, these girls are ghosts, did you see, did you notice,

where are they, w hy ain’t they here, present, on earth, why

can’t you find them even if you look for them in the light, how

come they don’t know anything or do anything, how come

they ain’t anything, how come they are shaking and flitting

around and apologizing and begging and afraid and drugged

and stupid even if they are smart; how come they are comatose

even when they’re awake? He pushes it in, she pushes it out, a

dead spot in the brain marks the spot, there’s a teeny little

cemetery in her brain, lots o f torched spots, suttee; we bleed

both ends, literal, little strokes every time there’s a rape, time

gone, hours or days or weeks, words gone, self gone, memory

wiped out, severely impaired; I cannot remember— how do

you exist? The skills, the tricks; tie your shoes; wrap ropes

around your heart, or was it your wrists; or was it ankles;

neck; I’d make a list if I could remember; I’d memorize the list

i f someone else would write it down; or I try, I scribble big

letters, confused, misspelled, on the page; or I look at the

words, meaningless, and draw a blank; I make a list,

misspelled words signifying I don’t remember what; or I draw

a picture, I use crayons, o f what? I try to say what I try to

remember; the skills, the tricks, language, yesterday. There

are little rape strokes, erased places in the brain, eruptions o f

blood, explosions, like geysers, it’s flooded, places on the

brain, blood’s acidic, did you ever sit in a pool o f your own

blood, it wears the skin o ff you, chafes, irritates, the skin peels