If I ever met him,
I would kill him.
Rushing at him with nothing but my hands,
I'd tear at his eyes,
or squash his balls
until they oozed through the skin like mucous.
Then I'd let him lie bound
with the taste of steel in his mouth,
a gun's barrel tight against his teeth,
until he thought he would prefer death
to this torture.
And I'd do it again and again,
until your grandfather began to see
what you grew up with, every weekend
since you were two.
Him, slobber flying from his lips,
his blue hands roaming your body
at their will, squeezing and slapping,
spreading you apart at every opening
shoving himself
inside you,
always with his gun at his side
wheezing through clenched teeth
in that basement with its one light bulb
swinging rhythmically back and forth
as your grandmother quilted
upstairs
in front of the TV in their bedroom.
Braced against my tormenting hands,
would he too flee his broken body
to save himself and float above even the light bulb
looking down on the scene like a third party?
Would he be able to get up every morning
for sixteen years, go to school, and pretend
that he was normal?
Could he stand to wake up night after night as an adult
screaming in terror and still go on living,
shades drawn, phone off the hook
for weeks at at time?
And would he still be breathing, pulling himself
through each long day with a forced smile, like you are?
No, I think he'd beg me to pull that trigger
after the very first time;
he'd shatter like a plate thrown against the wall
into shards that couldn't be put right again.
Maybe he thought he could pull you apart all
those times, rip your heart out through your head,
puncture your soul with his cock, his tongue,
make you his blow-up doll,
cause you to cease living for anyone but him.
But he was wrong. He was wrong!
You limped away at eighteen and finally began your life,
holding yourself together with just a shoe lace at first,
struggling against suicide, trusting no one but your cats,
climbing up out of that basement slowly,
step by step,
something pushing you on,
sometimes dragging you up
to the door at the top
you'd been groping for
--now running through--
finding your feet at last.
All poems copyrighted by the author, Tracey Besmark 1997©
