I was a pretty psychic child. I knew early on why uncle’s greedy eyes followed my body across any room. His hugs felt like knives against my skin. “Say hello he is your uncle!” mom would demand even with my 5 year old mean mug. I was proud of my cross hands, tough puffed out chest and hard body. I found him repelling, his hands holding onto me longer than the clock’s arm hovered over the numbers. I could see his teeth, his smile always made my eyes twitch. I was a psychic child. I already had an idea what uncle wanted. I begged my mother. “Mom please don’t leave me!” “I will be right back” my mother reassured me. As she left me alone with the big bad wolf. I feel him watching me watching the front door. I held on trying to find safety in the corner of the room, that had suddenly felt like it’d been lined with velvet rope. I did not bring my boxing gloves. Time moved in slow mo as uncle’s smile got wider, and more insidious. “Well an uncle should be able to help his niece with her homework! Sit down.” He motions for me to sit between his lap with my back facing his chest. I comply. I think to myself how he will be able to see my homework from over my shoulder. I feel uncle’s mustache on my neck and ear. I am filled with heat and yet stone cold. I am frozen. I cannot move. The next 10 minutes go black. My next memories are the stairs. Then my bedroom. I am alone again, my heart thudding with the door closed. I wait for the sound of the garage.
how my conversations with my mother have gone since
“Mom do you remember that one weekend when dad was away on a business trip and Uncle came to visit?”
“Well he only ever came to visit us alone once. When I was about 6 or 7 mom, you don’t remember?”
When I came out to my mother as a lesbian at 21, she could name every fictional male character I had crushes on as a kid
“but you loved Jacob, but what about that show oo you loved that little boy!”
but she could not remember throwing me to the wolves.
amandla
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass