make room

there is no way to open 
this easily, for decades I have
harbored a tiny body bleeding 
to death in an alley behind her 
house while her parents sleep 
through the sounds of her 
screams, I have not yet found 
some place safe to put her down

I remember her in bits 
and pieces, not formed 
recollections but waves 
of sensations pointing 
me to what’s true
like slides in a slide projector
each moment a separate picture 
I can look into and return to its slot 
I am trying to arrange the fragments 
in an order that makes sense
ground the floating pieces into 
something my body can follow
traceable lines, edges, endings 
and beginnings, so I can know 
it is just one thing, not everything 

so I can fold it in the past where 
it belongs, make room inside for 
the rest

I was two years one month and 13 days
when his shadow spread strange hands
over my sides, there’s no way to hold 
a small body that’s not intimate, close
he was the body I relied on for the few 
short minutes it took 
to carry me outside
it is all a 2 year old knows 
to do in the arms of a bigger body

even as I scrambled to make sense of
the scratchy steel of his presence 
even as he covered my mouth
to make sure I didn't make a sound
he had to have carried me carefully
past my sleeping big brother, my parent’s
room, my everything that would stop him if
they could

there was a single moment
fear melted in knowing 
in eyes hollow where he should have been
I reached for him
at first
held onto him
at first,

til his boot and my side
and my whole body jumped
from the middle,
and mouthfuls of his rage
from every direction,
my head and cement 
more times than 
I knew how to count to

I can’t remember trying 
to get away but I know I did
with all the might that tiny bodies
meant to be protected every second
have

I didn’t 
get away
my legs gave up 
first, then arms, then everything
not mine any more
his for whatever it was
he was after

except my hands
never stopped fighting, comforting, holding
on, they are what kept me

I remember, a warm wash down my sides,
seconds wrapped through forevers before

pain, its almost soothing wetness 
pooling between skin and ground

and pain
screaming,
with every pulse of rejection 
inside

the taste of salt and metal 
mingled in knowing
he wanted the weight of a 
body he had made lifeless

the forgiving silk of my middle
and ragged glass, every neat line I
attempted of the agony
every possible I constructed
it would stop

every texture of home I spun in 
the soft dark of my mamas belly

every matrix of hope gathered 
in the ripe chrysalis of my own orbit

ripping

I remember trembling, the heavy cold
of outside inside, even in august heat

I didn't want to leave, this bright vessel
of limbs and pores and change

I remember a last reaching, last anchor
in the swim of fading cells
then
collecting
the little
left, to some place safe

then his back in
flickered glimpses 

a new kind of alone, twisting worse inside
relief, first frost of questioning
if I’m only ok
when everyone 
leaves

but that isn’t all, there’s the part
where I am still here

where I know there’s more for me
than wrestling his shadow from my skin

than fighting the strength inside I
know because of him