After carrying the weight of all this damage
                                
for over thirty years, I wanted to be rid of it.
                                
And not just the smell of it—all of it.
                                
                                
To remove it from my body like a malignant
                                
growth or parasite. To deposit it in into
                                
something: a jar, a forgotten account,
                                
                                
someone else’s body. To throw the shame
                                
away. Into the trash. Into the ocean. Into a fire.
                                
To archive the pain like slave schedules or
                                
                                
census records that no longer spoke of my
                                
existence. This poem is a scar that reveals the
                                
onceness of a wound, a curated show in which
                                
                                
joy, bitterness, and unknown patrons attend.
                                
It is an elegy to mourn the parts that were
                                
shamefully discarded like scraps and a song
                                
                                
to celebrate the vibrant parts that still remain.
                                
It is unsolicited advice stuffed back into the
                                
throat. It is a how-to book misplaced on the
                                
                                
shelf. It is an old family map passed down
                                
from great-grandmother to grandmother.
                                
My father told me to go this way. I didn’t
                                
                                
listen, thank god. What can one do when it
                                
was her own father who once used the same
                                
map and found only the weight of all his
                                
                                
damage at the end of the road? Too tired to
                                
turn back, he built his house there: a wife in
                                
the kitchen, two children at the end of a
                                
                                
leather belt, a small dog crying in the yard.
                                
I ran away from home and found men who
                                
ate deliciously at the good corners of my
                                
                                
body. I ran away from home where we were
                                
predators and weapons and the wounded.
                                
We became fluent in the small-necked
                                
                                
language of control, our house illuminated
                                
with gaslight. Was it because we were the
                                
daughters of a mother who told us, “At least
                                
                                
he provides for us”? Was it because we grew
                                
up wishing that one day he wouldn’t come
                                
home? Was it because men took us and ruined
                                
                                
us, and our parents—reminded of their own
                                
taking and ruin—turned away in shame?
                                
Rather than chew on the answers, rather than
                                
                                
revisit that house, I will lay it all here, in this
                                
poem, and pretend it never happened: my
                                
body, my parents, the men. I will bury it
                                
                                
under the fruit filling—I am mother now.
                                
Everything must be sweet. Everything must
                                
be perfect, clean. This poem, too. Still,
                                
                                
I hope my children read it. I hope they see
                                
themselves reflected in the fine print. I hope
                                
they know it’s not their fault.