Page 70 - TheBridge_Vol16

THE PROCESS

Briana Crockett

I don’t know how to write a survivor poem
maybe it sounds like anger
or splintered glass
I don’t know how to write when I am ashamed and I know I shouldn’t be
but tell me how you feel when your attackers walk free
like a ghost in The Goonies
I don’t know how to write from a place where the wild things haunt me
and somebody will always be there to say that he was a boy
who does what boys do
like steal your toys
pull your hair
or hold you by the throat when you’re gasping for air

He was a smooth talker
dressed in a suit he was a loaded gun walking
the type of brother that made you ask your mother
how did you know you met daddy
how did you know he could hold your sugar like caddies
what tipped you off that he was worth the risk
and if your risk caught you by the wrist, how did you know you were in danger?
how did you know out of the sweetest fruit he would become a stranger
and you’d end up bitter
with the most elusive ideas of love throbbing in the scars he left you
how was I supposed to know
he’d leave me hollow in my own body
with nothing to come home to
Momma teach me how to know demons from how easy they come, and how evil they
laugh as they play with you
I am ashamed that I wanted him to want me
although I knew he lacked the understanding behind being a man
I made myself into something that lies slack
wiped transgressions on my skin and name me dirty
and name me aggressive
like all of the bullets in woman’s temple
he does not pray to the God of my temple
but he swears he’s found my virtue enough to desecrate it
colonize it in the name of black toxic masculinity
regurgitate sacred script spattered in our trembling tango
maybe there is a heaven for women’s agency
maybe there is a hell for men’s supremacy
I’d be the first one to send him to the flames he’s ignited in me
hell hath no fury like a woman harmed
and my God, She believes in reciprocity

58 | The Bridge Vol. XVI | 59