• You're digging with your fingers, clawing
    at the dirt so you can bury her face underneath,
    the way I want to claw
    at your face so you can feel the pain she felt
    while she clenched her teeth,
    begging an absent God to make you stop.

    You wouldn't stop
    because her taste between your lips filled
    the gap between your spine and your ribcage-
    the gap punched out
    by your father's fist as it went
    through your mother's crying smile,
    by the tears on your baby sister's cheek when
    she tried to understand rape
    at the tender age of seven.

    God knows you're still trying to understand it
    yourself, but this girl
    won't make you understand.
    She just wants to go home again
    and burn the clothes she's wearing
    and scream into the flame
    until there's no more you left
    inside her.