northern italy, 1980s. i unhinged my torso

between afternoon's sun and the grass field

i used to think would bury me

with white roses & your last name on the tomb

in my head our summers are next to right now:

you placed a strawberry between your lips

soft, sour fruit slumped down my bare throat

the one now scorched with acrylic scars

northern italy, 1980s. i no longer recall

how many summers i had been drunk on you

we were hellfires with oxygen-filled lungs

and your touch always felt like the first

our initials on that apple tree, withered.

i dig into my mind until my fingers bleed

for traces of a forgone lifetime, heaven

in your perfume, sins tasting like lipstick

northern italy, 1980s. some years later

i'd wake up in an empty bed, you next to him

polaroids locked, you no longer remember

august night, beneath your body. onwards-

i taste blood instead of strawberries

our apple tree torn down for the better. but

i don't regret the summers wasted next to you

& never the years of melancholy that followed

- deathetix

It was an event

even in our house

where the watching of movies

was discouraged as something related to sin

the Wizard of Oz

in black and white

frightening enthralling

instilling the belief in happy endings

no place like home.

I so wanted to be Dorothy

and go over the rainbow

singing

playing make believe

I had a loving pup named Toto.

My mother observed this

and hatefully informed me

“She’s not a little girl. She’s a drunk and drug addict with many husbands.”

Later, watching Jack Parr, she came on

I saw for myself what she was

thin frail shaking

forcing the song from her unsteady worn lips.

I was disillusioned for life

losing complete faith

that I’d ever

find the courage, heart and brains

to reach the Emerald City.

He was tall and handsome. Always had a cowboy hat and boots on. He was always a southern gentleman, he could charm the skin off a snake, yes he was a charmer. I guess that’s why my mama fell in love with him, and as everyone knows all daughters at the age of five want to marry their daddy’s if he is a good one.

My daddy was always sweet to my mama, and called me his “Little Darlin”. I adored that man. He was always loving and kind.

Then one day he didn’t come home.

A few days later, the lights didn’t work in our house.

The next thing I know my Papa and Granny have come to fetch us from the flat we lived in and my mama cried a lot.

I was only five years old and the first and only love of my life taught me that I and my family weren’t good enough to keep. That we were throw aways just like these people who get a puppy and six months later decide they can’t deal with it so they dump it.

My daddy dumped us.

It broke my heart so bad that nothing or no one can fix it ever……