Jamie Hood

from RAPE GIRL

 

CW: rape

VII.

No
Let me try again
 

                                                                                           No NO no

I consider the word                      Roll it                  like a pearl in my rot mouth

The formation of a pearl occurs when a foreign substance enters the oyster between its mantle
and shell   irritating the delicacy of the mantle   To protect itself from the irritant   the oyster
envelops the terrible object in layers of nacre   the same substance that forms its shell   The
offensive material may be as minute as a grain of sand   I consider the microscopic enzymes in
semen   o they infiltrate my mouth  eyes  all of my holes  intervening in the delimitations of the
body I occasionally think of as mine   I picture my/self         fashioning such rounded baubles
originating in the droplets of invasive ejaculate   I drape my/self in their necklacing            attend
the Metropolitan Opera (Le Viol de Lucrèce) allowing my R**ISTS to admire the way the light
amplifies their nacreous iridescences   tilt head this way and that      expose             swan throat
so mute & adorned

NO          enters                  a foreign body   Such an utterance
                                 requires an interlocutor          Encounter
                                                & tension             

How I love to imagine saying NO and seeing it received   pregnant with its intended meaning   &
subsequently adored   Such Signs & Symbols   What speech act shall I commit             today NO
burbles in the throat though   catches on the tongue   it is a snare   Unhinge my jaw   NO is so big
& so unattended to   Rise from                 me         Constitute your/self   no   Emerge          O please be
arisen  O you are full of helium   and so high pitched   heard just long enough to dig under the skin
NO         O let me
                                                                                                                                                          try again

How do I tell you the first man
who [unmoored] me was no man       but
a boy  older kid on the block   & I
was seven       a trembling
flock of sheep   in a girl suit                    who knew
little                   but enough to hide behind the wood
shed      knew enough   to hide with dust
hiding under his bed   I waited there
re-orchestrating my cells   praying
to become a tree             How I forget
rootedness is its own danger   Also
he knew enough              to find me How

can I say you can guess what came next
—or if you can’t   it remains unrepeatable
This is one kind of childhood   I suppose
at the time I didn’t know whether it was bad
or else good   I grew some bark   My surfaces
desensitized   I became filled with carbon dioxide
                                                               To this day I am exploited
for my oxygen   I produce less now   I never grew
to my full height   I never knew how to be the right sort of tree
Still I am a minor                           ecosystem
While we yet have them   After that we’ll see