there is a word used for us,
a phrase for our situation.

lo-li-ta.

was i your annabel, humbert?
your first,
in preparation of your very own lo,
your dolly, your lover?
did you care for me, really?

(of course not.
you were fourteen.
i was six.)

did you understand what you were doing?

(no, that's preposterous.
you were a young teen,
an adolescent,
with hormones.

i was the smiling,
unsuspecting
object of your clumsy,
confused affections.)

do you care about me now?

(nope, wrong again.
you have moved on, after so many years.
i no longer know you,
your face,
your name.)

did you ever spare a second thought
to the bright young child
you corrupted so early on
in both your lives as you grew?
did you dwell on thoughts of her
late into the night,
contemplating her fate?

do you know me?
would you recognize me,
if we passed on the street this very day?
would i be easily picked out
in a group of girls all my age and complexion,
plainly marked by the ever-darkening
stain you left on my soul,
my mind,
my body
so many years ago?

i have forgotten you,
your face,
your name,
yet you haunt me with re-emerging flickers,
flashes of memory
forgotten to have ever existed.

for so long,
you have stayed hidden,
shrouded in the fogs of distant,
intentionally buried images.
but now you're struggling, humbert,
fighting your way to the surface,
messing with my mind,
my entire sense of who i am,
altering my perception
of the accepted and the tolerated.

perverts beget perverts,
so they say.
and i, better than any other,
know that you are,
indeed,
a pervert.

so what, dear humbert,

will

     that

          make

                me?