i.
i was 7 when my sister pointed at my chest
covered by a loose pajama t-shirt
and said “you really ARE getting ***** aren’t you?” and laughed
and i
ran back to my room and cried
and thought about how
i could saw them off
without
the blood attracting too much
attention
so until i could figure out a way i
kept my shoulders hunched over
to hide myself

ii.
i was 8 when my mother bought me a bra
she scrunched it up in a plastic shopping bag
into a ball she concealed in one tight fist
she came up to my room
quietly
carefully closed the door behind her
whispering as she knelt in front of me
unwrapped my new shameful secret

iii.
i was 10 when my father first
grabbed my shoulders and told me to
stand up straight
gave me a lecture about bad posture
told me stories about old women nobody ever wanted because they look like turtles- can’t pick up their heads to look at you
i could only tune him out because
i couldn’t tell him that id much rather sink
into the hardened concavity of my aching spine
than be seen

iv.
i was 13 when i got my period during a test in school
feeling the weight of another secret on my
already-bent spine
only made me cry again
only affirmed the stereotypes we were trying to shatter
in the minds we were trying to change
i begged the nurse not to call my mom
but she choked the phone number out of me
and that night my mother couldn’t
speak to me without that pitying, distanced
look in her eye that i hated so much
but it burned the confidence i might have had to say something

v.
i was 15 when i told my father i didn’t want to go swimming
that i just didn’t feel like it
let him conclude that i was self-conscious, embarrassed,
too much to even say so like
every other woman he had ever known in his life
and he told me i had to be more adventurous
that he was worried i was never going to have fun in my life
never going to be outgoing enough to get by
while i held back tears and the voice about to say “I’m on my period”

vi.
i looked
in the mirror
and allowed myself
for a moment
to notice the body i was trying so hard
to evaporate
i felt
so defeated
that it was still there

there was pain swelling
growing like a cyst
pushing against the backs of my retinas
pressing through my papery skin and cradling
my eyes in
tired
bruises

my pathetic reflection told me
i hated living in secret
flattening my chest so no one can accuse me of being a woman
shutting the door so i can pour hydrogen peroxide on stained bedsheets because i can’t put them in the family’s washing machine
stealing my mother’s razor and shaving everywhere to look like the other spotless girls at school

i hate the whispering
the hunching
the hiding
and pretending

vii.
there is not much
a few pretty strokes of ink can do
but
i am here now
to write about
shouting
about truth-telling
and openness
about rebuilding and restoring
and change

change for shattered girls who hate themselves like i did
much more than i did
whose hunched spines break under the pressure of the unseen
who set torches to their Power and burn themselves to ashes

no more ******* secrets.