I knew not to trust anyone.

 

I slept on my side

arms cradling

          everything I owned

like a sail full of wind.

 

Under my head,

the metal bucket

I used to clean myself.

 

Jars of Vaseline

tucked behind                each knee.

 

The mouthless threats of men

          scraping their nails against

                    the bars of my cell at night

 

on their way

to the bathroom

and back.

 

I turned eighteen in prison.

 

My body became its own

          ultimatum.

 

          I roughed up my skin

          against the bed post’s sandpaper frame

 

& dry-washed my eyes

under the septic light

          of an open wound.

 

I tried not to talk to

          my mother that month

 

to buy my body time

to bury the memories of itself

 

that uncorked

a pit

                    in my stomach

                    every morning I woke up.

 

I hollowed out childhood

into a summer of scars,

 

dug & dug

until all that was left

 

          of my body was its animal

          & the damned rumor of a boy.

 

Their requests for

One More Week

swiveling

back & forth

on the head of a pin

 

                    like a bluff

 

          their pleas for time

          drying up mine.

 

On the seventh night

          of an empty stomach

I caved & called my mother.

 

Behind her voice,

          I could make out the jingle

          of an ice cream truck

 

passing by our backyard.

 

There once was a boy

& his mother who lived here.

 

There once was a boy.

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