Beach Week
Brett can I call you Brett?
probably not,
Your calendar says Beach Week.
My calendar says Trauma Week.
This is the difference between us.
Black out drunken game nights
lost in your hippocampus. You could always say to the priest
“I did a few things in college.”
While I carry the fragile scar of what happened.
It opened up last week as your rage
spit all over your ambition.
I think if you had said sorry
we could have forgiven you.
Even for the fact of your forgetfulness.
Perhaps if you tried to look in the folds of your memory for an old story lost
in its pockets, for
the boy before this cartoon manhood
BEACH WEEK is preserved on the dates in 1982,
in capital letters and written over twice in bold marker.
While TRAUMA WEEK is never scheduled.
There is never a season for it. I am wrecked by the week.
Its props and dangers mean I have to wait parked on the side of my life
Feel the dead weight of her story; my story.
While the world of men can look away.
LOOK AT ME.
I have done my work but my jaw and face
are stone again. I watch the fucked up face of the man on tv. He looks like a drunk seventeen year old boy.
This time though I am not the only victim. I am
in a stadium full of victims. We are in the cheap seats
watching her. Holding her. Waiting.
I dont like your lies.
I understand them though.
“I was not there. It did not happen.”
I did not push her down. Biologically, lies wont hold.
They give way. The brain wants its whole story
It wants repair.
Until you find it in the hippocampus —you are spoiled milk.
I am wrecked by the week. Its props and dangers
I have to wait. Feel the dead weight of it.
My poor husband trying to learn everything
he is supposed to know, waiting until he can touch me again.
Waiting to see if we can make plans for something else or if we will go into overtime.
