Birthday

It’s my birthday.

I’m swiping dust from my bed with a rag

While “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”

Spins in the CD player and I sing.

“You know those songs real good, don’t you?”

He smiles from the door, ogling my hourglass frame,

“You’re quite the woman now.”

I know what’s coming,

Feel the paralysis deaden my body, my mind.

The child in me says, as it does every time,

Be docile, be silent, and then he won’t take it all.

We’re on the bed: he starts to kiss me again, to “massage” me.

I swallow the dagger-fear, let it rip me

Open from the inside out, let the physical pain

Of it going down metamorph me into 

Warrior Goddess Rage.

I stand up.

He cowers on the bed like a whipped dog.

“Get out. Get out of my bed. Get out of my room. Never come back.”

“Sure,” he says. “Just don’t tell your mommy.”

I turn the stereo up, let “Acrobat”

Shake the bricks off the house,

Slam the door behind him.

He didn’t touch me again.

Forced a tongue-kiss once more in the kitchen, but mostly

Just found excuses to be nearby 

When he knew I was getting dressed.

I learned to dress in the dark, avoid mirrors – 

They’re not for doing hair and makeup.

They’re for spying out Monster

Who thinks you can’t see it.

That’s how I lived, for a while.

Then my little baby sister started acting strangely.

I knew it would detonate a bomb I couldn’t control,

But I told my mommy.

Now I stand in the war-flattened ruins of all our lives.

Every year on my birthday, 

I try to take myself apart at the cells

And flush each one down the toilet

Where it belongs.

-Sabne Raznik

Internationally published poet, Community Theatre actress, award-winning artist with three poetry collections - "Following Hope", "Linger To Look", and "Rabbit Hole". Founded and co-edits AvantAppal(achia) ezine and co-edits North/South Appalachia.