When I was smaller than I am now I learned to count on my fingers.
And I should have counted, fingers and thumbs, how many “no”s it took him to hear it, how many times these fingers had to keep his from wandering, how hard they had to grab his face and say, you’re not listening to me.
I am not so small and this blackened truth has revealed itself to me like rot in the trees, the porches, the ceilings of bedrooms, everywhere.
another with a body decaying, laid to waste by a man with greedy fingers who crept in and stole her sanity when she trusted what he had handed her.
I am furious. for her for me and now, like those vengeful, screeching daughters of the night who made Dante cower at the gates of hell,