A Picture is Worth a Million Wounds

 you chose the paintings

your nephew created

over your daughter-- 

because you

"can separate

the art

from the artist"

(he always was the artful dodger)

he gave you two gifts,

decades ago,

before my lips finally let it go.

even after telling you

The Whole Bedside Story, 

you've kept them

as your outside view, 

proud to give the artist glory. 

I see him every day because

his creation

is cherished more than

hers.

I let go, but

you keep him

in your sight

and smile at

his handiwork 

come sunlight.

you hold him tight,

like your purse

to your side,

where, tucked in the

hidden compartment

she's secreted the curse.

don't be alarmed by it,

it's just another verse.


Virginia would write you blue

and explode with red rage,

like the Confederate grey POP! of

the backfiring of a car,

furious with you over an

explicit war

that didn't exist,

a chance longtime missed.

you should have started a war,

a bull run

across the battlefield:

dug an ocean to reach

me by paddle,

walked through fire

from Tallahassee to Seattle

your parents calling me a liar

and you did nothing,

which is nothing new.

he should've lost

and lost to you.


but who's afraid of three guineas?

of Virginia and her wolf?

let her line my coat pockets

with boulders

hanging heavy

sinking me

down,

just another proper noun

left to drown, 

anonymous.


I have been weighed and

measured.

the coat on

my shoulders

led me to water,

but The Lady of the Lake

has no power

because

I'd swim through hellfire

to my father,

clad yourself in armor,

for not one hand

will ever again

harbor

threats of a cutting fuhrer

from a broken mirror.

I would rather

sit at the docket

on judgement day,

in a courtroom up, up, and away,

to where the

alien Good Men go to play:

I would rather die

than subsist on

all your lucky pennies. 


both pieces: two halves of one show.

and you, content with the intermission,

and you, satisfied with your conclusion,

there won't be an intervention,

it's nothing the family wants to mention,

no one took to my father's prescription, 

so send a good intention

but stay in suspended animation.


many pieces: a whole punch,

you can brag how bad I am later

to the Ladies Who Don't Lunch;

those who know

"It's happened before,"

and those who have been caught

here in the motherland

of haves

and the precious few who have not.


acrylic windows to the world

what do you see there, 

on that canvas?

a broken-down sack,

stretched burlap?

but never the attack

on your 11 year old girl,

"Because we can't straighten out

The Facts,

and that's the way of the world."

remember, she can separate the artist

from the entitled act:

"the torn hymen of a child"

no painting speaks to that.


yet protect the robin's eggs

listen for their peep,

and 'neath their mother's wing

they will find a sleep

without having to stay alert

for a creak

or the creep

up the stairs

whose affairs

are simply to fuck me

till it hurts.

so how about fuck you,

woman for whom I'll never weep:

you let your daughter crack.

I wasn't a bird,

I couldn't sing,

but you stand guard at

his shitty painting

unlike the child

you're exhausted of parenting.

you keep them, you said,

because

They Make You Happy. 

they're bright, colorful,

cheerful, thoughtful,

and it's a helluva moment,

learning your mother is cruel.


But those burlap sacks

Spread, open wide,

like my skinny legs

that barely held me up after,

cracked like robin's eggs:

The Play Is The Thing.

art is more

than what it makes up for.

a screaming violent rainbow

painted off a palate thick with

psychosis,

misdiagnosis,

his intentionally missed doses:

the slickest of black.

how easily those hands

of creation

just as deftly wreaked

devastation,

across my body

long gone slack.

and as I stare upon "the art"

i see the fucking artist

every

goddamn

time.

he's hanging in your bedroom,

easy and comfortable,

if I only had a noose,

Dear Dorothy,

I could let my art loose:

Pollock his body with bands

of yellow crime scene tape,

splatter him with

bright red stop signs,

as if "Stop!" ever halted a rape.


i wonder if it makes her feel

as powerful as he did

when he painted my body,

my world,

in hateful hues

of reds and bruise.

that night

a teardrop of blood

wept the length

of my leg

and murdered the sheets of

pink roses stretched across

my daybed,

a bloody bouquet,

while in the downstairs bedroom

he fucked my best friend.


ah, but those hands!

they could paint a chapel!

ah, but those hands,

they can crush an apple.

(easier than popping a cherry)

when i see his work

hanging,

framing

my mother's bedroom office,

i wonder if she ever thinks

of him

using those talented digits

to insist,

up to his wrist,

stealing her daughter's innocence

with his fist.

and how, at her insistence, 

there was no justice

because sometimes,

justice is nothing more

than a promising list,

a lullaby,

to pacify

hypnotize

into believing

Their Lie.


and I'll die a victim

at the hands of all like him

my finger on the trigger;

their hands are so much bigger

than even the one ive been dealt.

because no one wants to

stir up Granny's stew,

or upset the Texas crew.

Besides, what's a girl to do?

other than stare

at her office wall,

and the yellow legal pad

that should paper it all.

Or do like y'all,

in order to stall, 

in order to

forget

what feeling like felt:

May the Lord bless you.


What feeling like felt?


I'd rather fold

than play

the hand

that I was dealt.

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