three strikes

      After Uncle Phil got

      eight years

      for coke possession

      I inherited his bedroom,

      a modest kingdom

      magnificent in its starkness:

      ball chain hanging

      from exposed lightbulb,

      narrow mattress

      & weight-lifting bench,

      its iron rings laced in dust.

      Nights my struck face

      throbbed, when

      my body swelled blue

      from every pore,

      I’d lie in bed

      & pray to vanish

      closed my eyes

      so tight I saw stars.

      I wanted to become

      the reversal of light,

      to exist

      only within the

      hard-clenched black—

      kindergarten pariah

      with a sweet tooth for death.

      There, at the end

      of a smoke-stained

      hallway, I discovered

      the women,

      bodies shelved

      above the unworn

      coats & flannel

      button-ups.

      Kitty. Crystal.

      Heather. Ashley.

      Vicky. Candy. Kim.

      Feathered hair

      & lip gloss,

      pussies held open

      by French manicures

      they instructed me on

      the body’s forbidden dialect,

      the gospel of ecstasy,

      how heat can ravage

      from the inside out.

      I’d practice in the closet.

      Masturbated in the bathroom stall

      at recess. Deep

      in my sleeping bag

      during slumber parties.

      The Sunday school

      cloakroom. Dentist’s

      office. The backseat.

      My middle finger,

      a shriveled magician.

      How else could I survive

      the endless winter

      of my childhood?

      Hell-spangled girl

      spitting teeth into the sink,

      I’d trace the broken

      landscape of my body

      & find God

      within myself.