Someone once said the poem I wrote was too general.
The description of my pain was not enough for them.
And now I wonder if they knew exactly what they were asking for.
Did they want to hear about the sound the vacuuming cleaner made as it broke my mother’s brittle ribs ?
Maybe the look on fathers face as he swung, or the taste of the tears of all his kids.
I wonder if he would have been satiated to hear me recall in detail
What it felt like to be molested for the first time before my life even hit double digits ?
Perhaps he’d like to hear how I was so desperate to tell, but scared of repercussions that I blamed it all on my own brother.
Could it be enough for me to spew confessions of using my abusive father for candy from a local bodega, because that was all he was ever really good for?
Maybe he’d like to hear a melody written about how suffocation feels at the hands of the one you beg of love from?
Does he wish to know that I haven given my body to the same man more times then I can count hoping to feign the intimacy he wants, but can never receive because the scales on the cells of his skin repulse me?