In this room, cursed room... loved? Cursed. Where she slept. Half-grown, in her hometown t-shirt... shorts, no shorts. T-shirt worn with holes, on the floor, he having thrown it. Under the bed. Dust collected, swept, settled again, and again. Who? He. Not she. Gracious! There for the first time... assuredly the last. No boys in the room, father said. Keep out! Nodded her head. But in the room... blue light hugging the window, scotch tape peeling off the paint, whether chipped or freshly laid or... exhumed. He found her in the no, not found held her. Held her under doomed blankets, a thumb... under a thumb... twisted under a thumb. Urgently, unabashedly, shackled by his name. No name... names unknown. Two in the bed, one. World flaring by. Unedited film chopped and hacked. A sore thing. Ulcers blooming somewhere. Holes in her memory, in her body. Hush now. But the slicing... hush, I say! Feeling... feeling her own atomic skeleton, so quickly destroyed, so quickly defiled, so quickly filled. It might serve to relax, dissociate. But incapable. Already unaware. The girl. The girl... but the girl? Remember what? Remember the party? Supposed to be where? With whom? Taken home. Taken home with... She left the house? In the evening, bottles on the porch. Tequila stinging chapped mouths. He pours and pours and pours and pours, then disappears. A spoon of sugar in a wet glass. Moon casts a shadow, bloody crescent. Stray sequins scratch her shins, flake off. She is whisked away, smells distilled. The party. What party? The secret of where it is... where it was... must have been. Seen by people scantily dressed. A stain on the night. She wore... the idea of what she wore. Received poorly. With exhilaration. Noted, clicked, recorded, and frozen forever as she was. Those flashes, bright in her eyes. Phone cameras glinting. Periphery irritated. Some kind of no man’s land. Couldn’t breathe. Too hot. Couldn’t hear her voice. Escape. Wanting it all to fade to black. Anywhere else but here. So leave. Leave! Let out into vapor. Where did she go? Seen? By anyone? Taken home. Taken. Transported. Goods handled. Express shipping for dolls. Laid to rest in a bed of bubble wrap. Resting. In bed. Then: a stranger? No... not a stranger. Couldn’t be a stranger. To know her bed. In her room. Been in her room before. But father said no. Yet... so-called friend! Always... easily trusted. Hand on her lower back. Her sentences half-finished. Since days with velcro shoes. There like a mole. Constant. Dependable. Then... then he... then swam in her mouth. Syllables of his name. They’re in her teeth, to be scooped out by dental floss. Stuck, tip of her tongue. His finger on her pocked tongue. A moment of gagged silence. Lips form sounds learned in primary school. Not a scream. Some sounds. Vowels from when she was small and they... the words tasted new. Like a finger? A thumb... no! Like English... children who knew the flavor. But she... the bitterness... she... muffled sounds and play and muffled sounds. Out of touch. English more like aspic to her. At the time, at that point. But finding... somehow she found... but one universal language in hands and dirt under fingernails. Fingernails on skin. Raking on skin. Touches. Sticking to drool. Dirty kisses on monkey bars. Language of friendship. A friend. A friend who understood her warped words. English forgotten. Shoulder by shoulder. Kisses with friends. Wood chips licking open shoes. Pigtails on her head with little bows. And she forced herself to smile. Yanked by the ends. Tickled by the belly. Touched. Little boys, being boys. She did not realize. Long before parties. She did not realize. Laying in the bed, pigtails long gone. Gone where? Time spilled over from a cup, splaying... no, spreading... on the duvet. Uncovered, but why? The thought of... at the party, or rather... God! Zippers undone, knots untied. Laces in her shoes, unlaced. Command strips flayed from a mirror, shattered on the floor. Cut feet in the morning spliced. She struggles. Finds herself in out of herself. A second of incomprehension. Hours. Spanning hours. Erased and unnoticed by a blink. Gosh! But her mind... a washing of sorts. Reckoning with punishment. Lack of evidence. Guilty! Punishment... guilt in a sealed box, open only to her. Vanished memory. Insufficient evidence. Inadmissible. Poured out in measured shots. Now love is an apparition in the wall. Friendship buried in a shallow grave. Unseen. Slipping through a groping fist. Strange fist groping at... at... her native tongue resurfaces. From the cradle. From mother’s milk. Forming sounds. Sounds like no. Foreigners deaf to no. Adequately expressed. Speak English! But she can’t. She can’t. Gibberish garbled in her throat. Congealed from the inside. Speak! {error} Speak! {error} Suddenly... indubitably... he! Unadmitted... swine! Door left unlocked. Having forgotten to lock. Brought her home without keys. Carried on his shoulder. A friend... helping hand. By a friend. Since she met him. Day one. Fat black eyes. Dirty handshake. Playgrounds. Those same pigtails sinuous in his fingers. Friendship. Firm. Invitations to places. Introductions to people. Been in her room before. Some cousins to know of. Mario Kart in his basement. Pizza on trampoline forts. Sharing generously. Growing new body parts. Sheltered... without doubt? Certainly not! How could she... not to see it coming. A girl and a boy... together... as friends? Not to trail the wicked scent. Perhaps unassuming. Perhaps mistaken. Unaware. Naive. Guilty. Secretly wanting. Once or twice a flirt. In sobriety, dripping with meaning. He reads. Pours tequila into shot glasses. Her language stinks of filth to interpret as... in that tight skirt. Combinations of... stop right there! Can it? When it comes down to it... guilty... guilty... guilty. There in her body. There in her hands. And the cameras... a still life. Friends seeing it happen. Seeing it all happen. Indelible. The guilty party. Fine! Let it be this way. Crumbs for the world. Chewed on in daylight. School hallways chattering like shivering teeth. Goosebumps. Her flesh. Feed the hungry. Fed to friends. He... notches in his ribs. On her. Grating. Somewhere in the room. But she can’t move. Fight back. And hurt a friend. How the story goes. Pitched in the courtroom. Self-defense. When judgment day comes. And if it comes... who protects friends? She... she... language unserving. There in her body. There in her hands. There in her body. There in her hands. A friend. And she... she says nothing. Does nothing. In this room... in...
