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Oct 2015
Last week I got a call from
one of my friends. He sounded
scared, like he just got caught
5 yr old with hands in cookie jar.
He said, “I gotta tell you something,
gotta get rid of some weight off
this heavy burdened chest. Will
you listen?” So of course I told
him to hand me his hurt.
But when he told me that his
cookie jar
was a sorority girl with too much
liquor and not enough consent,
that his hands took dessert before
dinner, I had to tell him
to take his hurt back.
I couldn’t stop seeing the small boy
from a big town who’s hands
shook at the thought of talking
to strangers. How ironic it was
that no part of him trembled when
he spoke that night because she
couldn’t hear him.
I though of his midwife mother
and how devastated she’d be
to know her son is now building
graveyards in the bodies of
drunk women, how she may be
the one to have to remove this
tombstone.
I thought of the times
i’ve been decimals away from
unconscious in his dorm room.
How party
turned blackout
and I wonder if his hands
stopped trembling then too.
I wonder if he thought
of becoming the 3rd man
to make me his midnight snack.

He came to me to find solace
but instead he found me repeating
the word “no”
because he needed to hear it
because no one taught him that
blackout meant “no”
that if you can move their limbs like
jello, that is not ***
that is a puppet show and you are
just controlling the strings.

No —> Adverb; used to express
negation, denial, or refusal.
Example: No, I’m not going.
Example: No, don’t touch me,
Example: No, I don’t want this.
Example: No, she didn’t want this
but you gave it to her anyway.
How do I tell someone who has
lifted me up from my depths
to take this weight on his chest
and let it crush him.
Gyles Corey yelling “more weight”
as we press boulders on his sternum,
bone-crushing pressure.
Maybe then he will finally
understand “no”.

Two weeks ago, I got a call
from a friend. But last week
I got a call from a ****** who still
wanted to be called my friend.
Who has seen me shattered bottle
over my own cemetery of a body
and still wanted to be called
my friend.
But yesterday, I deleted a contact
from my phone book,
told my parents not to answer
if he knocks, but to be careful
because he may try to enter anyway.
Just so they know
that they have other hands to worry about
besides my own
Alyssa
Written by
Alyssa
682
     me gs, Ariel Taverner and Earl Jane
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