[Napkin]Testimony

This is a piece that I wrote while I was at a restaurant called Saigon in Frogtown. It is Vietnamese. My friends and I were sitting at the table and my friend Johnny asked if we had to make a choice between being a prostitute and going hungry which would we choose. This led to a conversation, next to theology, and next to life experience. Debry’l (my affirmentioned friend) told a story about herself that related to her decision… which triggered my brain and compelled me to write for the next half hour on a napkin. Thus this poem is called “Napkin Testimony”… it is my story summed up on a napkin… in the form of poetry.
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Once, I was a girl… but not quite because my parents were too busy to care, but, not really cause they were… unscrambling the puzzle of emotions, steaming and stoking the fire they once had, to, keep it alive, like… resuscitation, like, nursing a baby, like, licking a wound clean, like, antibiotics. AND, while they were networking and translating feelings through, twisted tongues and liquid battlefields, they, extracted tears by siphoning the storm, then forgetting ,me… and my sisters.

Once I was a girl, but… not really because my, silent suffrage or acts of defiance didn’t even shadow to reflect the light, they were, invisible, a cold draft to be felt and never acknowledged, like… lashing the neighbor girl for stealing or throwing the boy into the boots or strangling my academics, only reflecting my pain… but ignored, rather stimulating the inability to feel, and brick and mortar, brick and mortar, brick and mortar, forming the walls that now stand, waiting for a revolution to use my hands and… tear them down. And perpetual sentiment turns to ash or… mush, slop for pigs to eat from a trough because, NO TIME was designated and equipped to simply ASK, “How are you? How, are you?” Then there was the constant… shuffling from here to there and there to here and just a little over there and back to here, here, here and custody battle, child support puts me in the middle, but still I’m tossed around like a ball, you play regardless if the seams are frayed, and confusion… the child is lost. CONFUSION… the child, is lost. This identity leaves her hopeless confused and each day she fights a battle she waits to lose… and each day loses a piece of herself, like dead skin, dust.

Once I was girl, but not quite cause my dad raised me and mother scarcely felt me love, and she was busy, and I, always needed to learn me a woman, so I… looked to sisters to embrace me, so I, looked for teachers to affirm me, so I, looked for homes to save me, so I, looked anywhere… for acceptance. Yet, maternal instinct was lacked, no water provided to bloom this flower up. Strong and tall with a crooked stem, taught to cultivate through a pen. And, regular woman things were procured through school and, mommy wanted to be friends… forgetting… that structure was important and all I wanted is to hear her say NO! I… understood it for what it was, 16 with a kid leaves no protection against the shock of having to be an adult when you’re not! So, roles reversed, where… child healed the hurts of an adult and gave her advice and lessons and plans to progress… if she’d listened. She’d know through this, I’ve become a perfectionist.

Once I was a girl, but not quite, actually because that was lost in the subjection of pornography and, stepdads stalking the house with his anatomy exposed, grabbing the ham of a woman so proud, and speaking his sexual perversions aloud. And, next door to the room the children slept, haunting of sounds of audio sex… scenes amidst the protection of dry wall and insulation, little brothers forced to watch what he shouldn’t, assaulted for speaking up, and whatever we did was never good enough. And… [pause] having to keep our eyes averted, the idea of love was always perverted like the twisted metal after a car accident, my daddy tried to keep me young. He tried… to keep me young.

And, Once I was a girl imperiled to alcoholism that destroyed families, not one but two, many and drinking was a normalcy, like going to the bathroom, and emotional abuse wreaked havoc, spitting in my face with words to defuse what I’ve built, and your sister’s the pretty one, the boys like her better, you are… just average. AND so often they’re piss your pants drunk, and so often friends are raped at parties, and so often it causes diabetes, and so often there are fists in air, moms knocked to the floor and screaming pounding yelling to… hit your wife and kids, fear so much that extracurricular activities are never enough, and my mom she defended me. She did.

Once I was a girl that received free clothes from the church, from kids that LOST their stuff and NEVER found it, and hamburger helper, hot dogs, pizza, spinach were, consecutive meals, along with… whatever was brought home from work, but I admit we had it good. EVEN IF, the peanut butter was fake and toast was my dinner almost every day, and I’d fake like I wasn’t hungry so no one knows I have no money, and school clothes were hand me downs from friends or… stolen by them. Then there was the re-wearing of clothes cause laundry was once a week, and… we only flushed when we number two-ed, and the lights were always off, and the house was always cold, and sleeping on the floor was normal, and one thin blanket was always enough. Even if, lice so often months of school were missed, and swapping free reduced for that Swiss Cake Roll, and McDonalds… was a luxury.

Once I was a girl, who, learned to survive, and was told to be “strong and not cry”, and never had the time to feel beautiful, who got self worth for giving everything she owned, and, never caring for herself, because… I was trying to love on… everyone else like, Mother Theresa, or my dad… and cried alone, to this day… I cry alone… but I am a woman, and… and lucky that all these things have ran its course and… made me brave, painting a portrait to define the lines of my face and… never forgetting my memories but forgiving and never giving a thought to erase, but to moving on without strife, and always following my dreams and living my life.