Saint Maria Goretti: Slivers
by Zoe Alexandra
That’s the whole thing with me
Wanting the next bottle of cisco
Before I finish the last of a fifth,
Mixing Seagrams with Kool-Aid
In an old Poland Springs bottle,
Pretending to be unbreakable
When really all the walls
Were soft and see-through
Like nylons, snagging
and catching on fence posts
All the ramparts became
Splinters and slivers
Down my arms
Up my torso
All the black eyes became stories
And brief flashes
from an old abandoned 8 mm camera
From a secret life I lived
But didn’t even know about
Waking up from blackouts
Thinking everyone hated me
So I joined them
And hated me too
In his car, late last winter
I told my furtive Amoureux
That I wanted him to commit
Zoe,
you can’t even commit
to yourself,
he said
And he was right,
Later that night I ate
the rest of a chocolate bar
And emptied the contents
Of my stomach
Into the toilet
I told him he could sleep over
Under my bed,
then got lonely and told him
I wanted him to touch me
I hadn’t eaten in days
There were wounds in my mouth
from biting the inside of my cheek
He felt them when he ran his tongue
along the inside of my jaw
trying to lick the wounds shut
trying to seal the envelope of my misery
But misery is a better companion
than my paramour
Because he leaves when things get too rough
When the driveway has never been paved
When my bills line up on my desk in
Perfect pastel shades like wallpaper samples
and the lights shut off so only a prayer candle glows
to illuminate his way to my bed
Where my arms are covered in purple bruises and
my lips are a stained red gash on my face
Where my nose runs rust
like the corroded pipes from a
forsaken water source.
He knows my ache all too well.
His neck is covered in thick scars.
They feel like scales under my fingers
And I am convinced that
we are really mermaids
and sea creatures
that we have already made our descent
below sea level.
We can sit under the hose in my backyard
Wash ourselves clean,
but this is no baptism.
Saint Maria Goretti: patron saint of rape, girls, youth
