I leave with no thoughts of tomorrow

clothes thrown in that ugly oversized

brown pleather suitcase, I drag that

monstrosity across the empty

RV lot littered with broken glass

call from the Pacific Bell phone booth

next to the liquor store that sells

penthouse magazine / our favorite candies

choking back tears I can barely talk

a handful of coins connects me to him

“It happened again...I can’t take it any more…

I’m coming...Help me...”

 

I board a bus that goes across

town to the Greyhound Station

I vow she’ll never touch me again cause

when she does I became nothing and nobody

her hands transform into

weapons of mass destruction

rhythmic screams emerge...

 

“I have to be...

both 

mother and father...

You’re not going 

to control me...”

 

My family is nothing like the I Love Lucy reruns

A mother’s devoted wacky love

A father’s sage advice

Everyone laughs, kisses and makes up

 

It is mother screaming at the top of her lungs

Her hands slapping my face over and over

and over again, and,

if she doesn’t slap,

she punches,

she whips,

she slams,

she humiliates me

into nothing and nobody

 

I am the object of her concentrated rage at being left a single mother,

without a husband,

without a lover,

or without family,

I’m beaten into submission

beaten into an emptiness that becomes nothingness

nothing exists inside

my mind shuts down

pain seeps into my cold shaking body

I learn

how

to

float

high

above

the craziness

to feel nothing

over

and over

again

 

Till this morning

she hits me for the last time

I am seventeen.