The Room

We were in the same room together once, when I was born.

and i think it's only because it was mandatory for you to be there. because the whole event relied on you, being there.

Not mandatory like my first day of kindergarten when you tugged on my father's sleeves because all you wanted to do was leave. Not mandatory like my poetry awards ceremony, or my middle school graduation, not mandatory like the photoshoot before my first homecoming dance, not mandatory like my last high school honor roll ceremony.

People tell me I've got a mouth like a sailor, a temper like TNT dynamite, and a heart of pure gold but you don't know that because you weren’t in the same room when obscenities were beaten into my head by the meaty hands of my father.

You weren’t in the same room when I was taught that spitting "fuck you" into the face of someone who loves you is sometimes the only way to hurt someone enough to make them stop hurting you.

You weren't in the same room when I sank my teeth into his metallic thumbs and cried quiet tears when the blood seeped onto my tongue. Not from the pain of being beaten but from the pain of tasting my own blood drip from metal man fingers.

You weren't in the same room when my father taught me that blowing up like TNT Dynamite is the most effective way to make people listen to you.

That screaming makes people listen to you.

THAT SCREAMING MAKES PEOPLE LISTEN TO YOU.

You weren't even in the room when my father taught me that having a heart of pure gold means staying tender against tough winds and loving someone despite the pain of abuse.

You were in the same room with me when sperm met egg, when oxygen filled my lungs, but God forbid you be in the same room when I was made, shaped, formed.

So when you ask me "has he hit you before" with tears threatening to overflow onto your face like a river pushing boundaries in the wet season I lied and said no, because if you were in the same room you would know.

After all of this, the one thing I can say I learned from you is that abandonment doesn’t mean being alone,

sometimes being abandoned means that the person you need is in the next room listening to the screams that erupt from TNT dynamite

abandonment is peering through the cracks in doors and listening with hot cheeks pressed against the wall as obscenities pour out of a little girl's sailor mouth.

You taught me that abandonment is companionship between rooms.

We were in the same room, once but God only knows how many times I wish you had pushed the door open and stood by me.