Truth Climbs Out of My Throat to Shame My Abusers

When she emerges, she is not a beautiful thing,
drenched in a vernix of saliva,
breathless, trembling.
It has taken years to knife herself up my esophagus,
blazing her name red into each rib passed.
A tempestuous, heaving mass birthed into cupped hands,
a reckoning, and did you know,
I placed her amidst the cedar of my childhood home,
let her catch.
And still not as simple as that.
Every time I speak I decide
whether to keep her loaded on my tongue or rage,
because part of her is that I still speak to my father.
Part of her is that my father never reads my poems,
or if he does, sweeps them into the compost
for the worms to read, with the tomato peelings
and blood and how my mother helped us
hide purple omens from his belt, called that love.
How a girl I was seeing hit me fifteen years later
and I remembered that first time, knew now
it was in my hands to make sure hers never touched me again.
What a nice thought,
that I can save my childhood self
with a better cape tied around my shoulders.

Auden Eagerton is a non-binary poet located in Kennesaw, Georgia. They received a Bachelor of Arts in English, as well as a minor in Film Studies, at Kennesaw State University. Their interests lie heavily in studying American literature and poetry. In addition to publishing their own poetry, Eagerton aims to one day become an editor for a literary magazine and be involved in both sides of the publishing process. Their work has been featured in Exhume Literary Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, LandLocked Magazine, Across the Margin, DASH Literary Journal, The Bookends Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Digging Through the Fat/Digging Press, and is upcoming in peculiar, The Meadow, and Kudzu.

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