“Ru, when will you marry?”

you are 40 when mother asks this. not that your age has ever stopped her. she has been asking this question, questions, for decades now; and your answer has always been the same. you sit in her kitchen, next to the mahogany table you have known your whole life, table drenched in familiar scents and 90’s memories. you envelope a white cup with your fingers, embracing the warmth from the tanganda tea. she slices vegetables she plucked from her little garden, pausing between conversation, seeking answers between your refuge in the silence. for a moment, you part your lips, utter a word that disappears into the fabric of the universe. how do you tell her that you have been seeking true love ever since you were born? that you hope to reincarnate as someone else, someone luckier, just to experience a timeless love.

how do you tell her that your heart is a love letter with no words; a blank page, begging, begging, for creation. how do you tell her love is a kite that you have never flown? that your fingers have only known fear. have only cradled loneliness. and your body gives birth to death. how do you tell her you have aborted more times than terrorists kill. in the middle east. in houses that know love. until love met machetes. and headless men. how do you tell that the base of your womb is a cemetery, tombstones of lives never lived. that sometimes you see the ghosts of unborn children. of sparkling eyes and little feet. how do you tell her that sometimes you feel them, slithering in your flower, serpents, in graveyards, seeking, seeking, an escape, an escape. how do you tell her your house is a burning building? that you see flashes of your abuse in every room? how do you say you have held matchboxes and gasoline in both hands. and lit a small fire. how do you tell her you watched the fire dance, on your skin, poetry in motion, and it grew, and grew, and you died, and died.

how do you say your ‘lovers’ took all of you, without sounding dramatic? how do you say there are parts of you that are missing? how do you say your soul is searching for the right way home? lost in the labyrinth of trauma. how do you ask her to patch parts of you? to piece together something dead? how do you explain the scars on your face. the blemishes. the cuts. how do you tell her your exes wear your innocence. as a badge of honor. soldiers who won their battles. of abusers like war vets, who pride themselves on victims’ mass destruction. how do you… how do you tell her you have swallowed scripture after scripture? that your tongue is lacerated with bible verses. that you have made the devil burn from the inside but his ashes remain. and he, shapeshifts into disease from men who always know what to say. in nightclubs and on blind dates. that he [the devil] is inevitable. but god must be fictional, because he has never uttered your name, in the fabric, of the universe. because he has been silent, silent, when whips and chains left trails on your skin, like railways for slaves, like pathways in cornfields, like oppression, oppression.

how do you tell her your father, her husband, introduced you to abuse, like a lost cousin. like old friends at a barbecue. how he cut your lips, lips, with razor blades, for threatening to speak. how he touched you in all the wrong places. how he taught you to be a foreigner in your own land. the colonization. of your own body. how he hung your innocence, like paintings in museums. how you became his masterpiece. how do you tell her your father, her husband, built barbed wires around your throat? that he barricaded your voice. built walls. built your silence. brick by brick.

how do you tell mother you bury bible verses in lungs?
how do you tell her that … you don’t.
you remain silent.
like you were taught.

like a victim. like slaves. like burning buildings. like fire dancing. on your skin. like disease. like stds. like men like devils. like abortions. like empty love letters. like decades.

of suffering. of suffering.
of searching for love in all the wrong places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by kevin turcios on Unsplash