Beast // God

When my mother beat me
instead of an apology, she would bring 
me lavender: soaps, creams, perfumes.

I held my body taut like a wire for years,
my tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth
and nailed there. I said thank you for the offering

of my own blood, the color purple; my mother 
laying flowers at my feet, washing my feet like
a savior. So much tied into her fist: the venom

and the antidote, the little god. 
No one beats me anymore, but I keep 
dried lavender in every room of my apartment. 

Comfort is a beast. And shame. Lord, my shame.
I never learned not to anticipate the flash of 
a palm, the shock of white inside my eye.

If you are listening, I want to tell you everything.
Strange as it is, everything: beating a child, 
bathing in an acquittal. I want to tell you it all

and maybe it will bring me the balm of silence. 
Maybe it will guide me out of the flash in the dark.
Maybe I will learn how to love anything else.