held upside-down by my feet
from the doctor/white as a
sheet and swung
like a pendulum/as a teen with a speculum
as I widened my knees.

I’ve been smacked
together as two erasers hanging out
the window blowing billowing
clouds of smoke floating in the white
dust till I choked.

I’ve been smacked
in the head by the hands
of my mother. Pulled by the hair,
pushed like the button of a buzzer
till I splintered as the timbered door frame.

I’ve been smacked
as the ice in winter. Some man stuck
a pick in me till I screamed.

I’ve been smacked
in the face of reality
as I lost all my dreams. I wore a
gray mentality/unraveled at the seams. Till I
sewed the hole back together. And mailed it out
like a letter.