ever so lightly he lays a finger on my lips and tells me to stay quiet. he tells me that his body pressed on top of mine is what God would have wanted, he tells me that my little girl face is so sweet like a scoop of vanilla ice cream, I have no flaws yet, but he had a spoon.
'no' can't resonate from my lungs when I barely know my left and rights and my ups and downs.
lying down in an office, the therapist gives me a stress ball that has the world painted on it. our snacks are light but the subjects are not, I tune out the sessions but I hear a question out of the blur, "do you remember what he did?" I squeezed the voodoo stress ball so tightly my world starts spinning, -I reply- he taught me to keep my silver wear drawers SHUT. I'm five years old again and I don't know my lefts or my rights or my ups or my downs. Life is not a box of chocolates it's a bowl of melting dairy.
-I'm grounded- for lying. two weeks in my room and they take my blankets; that's what the doctors told them to do. While I shiver in the night all alone, I'll think about what I did wrong. We are so disappointed in you Savannah.
Im starting to feel less vanilla and more... rocky road. I'm to be seen and not heard. I have two ears and one mouth and I am to be using them in that proportion.
I've gotten so used to hospital socks and cold spoons and the mindset of 'you're the problem' and 'boys will be boys'
Later in life I'll get to tell him that I no longer have a vanilla scoop for a face, I have bags under my eyes and tobacco in my teeth, the only thing sweet about me is this menthol flavor in my mouth. I fixate on anything other than speaking so that the world can't hear what I have to say, even if the law believed me, even if my friends believed me, even if our parents believed me, a prison cell could never hold you.
be strong enough to say no