Springtime Dreaming
I dream I am at the movies.
sitting in darkness, surrounded
by a sea of faces I recognize,
all smiling, waiting, shoveling popcorn
into their mouths with curled fingers
and hush now the movie is starting.
the screen comes on with a whirring
sound, a scene fades into view: Phoenix
at the birth of spring, too early yet
to shake the cold off its shoulders.
we’re narrowing in now- light tan tile,
cold and wet. a toilet gaping
with its mouth of hell. the song of a piano,
lonely and melancholy, not too far away.
and a girl, thin and sallow, the purple
blooming beneath her eyes like flowers.
she is me. i glance around the theater-
maybe they’ve noticed- but i am met
only with the crunching of popcorn,
pale curiosity glinting in their eyes.
i look back at the screen.
there is a boy. i know him too.
he unbuckles his belt. makes her kneel.
i know this scene. i know how, in an instant,
he reduces her from a person to a pile
of rotting flesh and bone, a gaping hole.
another worthless thing he owned.
she shakes her head, her mouth says no,
over and over, so he fills it with something else.
my heart slams like fists. the air can’t find its
way to my lungs. i am trying to stand,
trying to say, stop the movie. make it stop,
but i am drowned by the hundreds of voices
around me, now laughing.
she’s on the toilet now. his fingers
dig into her hips like scorpion stingers.
her shorts are gone. her mind is gone.
her body, frozen. she’s scratching for her voice,
scouring. her memory splinters into
thousands of pieces. the world around her
melts away, oozing like lava that takes
her skin with it as it goes. I am crying,
flailing, make it stop make him stop.
and they’re roaring now in demonic cackles.
the scene changes: days after,
or maybe months before. she doesn’t
know. she presses the blue-green bruises,
tries to squeeze out the venom. she
plucks the scabs from her skin
like flower petals. he loves me.
he loves me not.
now we’re in her bedroom.
she is folded, crumpled, her eyes dull
and nowhere. her mother is in the doorway,
choking on sobs. her father is thundering
like a monsoon. you fucking slut. you’re a
fucking slut. no one will love you
if you give yourself away
like a whore. she stares at her lap.
she can’t meet his eyes, so he punches,
the rage and shame of a hundred generations
inside him. I’m screaming no god no no
please god no
how many times? he asks her.
how many times did you do it
I don’t know, I don’t know
and he’s hailing blows now,
pelting her face. tell me,
how many times?
I don’t know, please, I swear to god
I don’t know
he hits, over and over and over.
HOW MANY TIMES
HOW MANY TIMES
HOW MANY TIMES
I’m howling now, tearing my flesh
and hair apart. I’m begging for mercy.
I’m digging my thumbs into my eyes,
wailing as the laughter around me
grows deafening.
HOW MANY TIMES
TELL ME.
TELL ME.
her vision bursts and fizzles out.
she’s seeing stars.
she makes up a number
and begs to die.
Isla Cueva is a writer from Arizona.