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
Jamie Hood did her doctoral work on women’s confessionalism and poetics at Brandeis University. Since leaving the academy she has been working on a book length sequence of poems, lyric prose, and personal history concerning sexual assault, rape culture, and media. Her most recent publication was with Burning House Press. She lives, writes, bartends, and dog moms in Brooklyn.