“The Firetruck Game”

Every woman has a memory

Of her earliest violation,

Of the first boy to jab

A tongue down her throat, lips unyielding

Until they must, parting to breathe—

More like pant, panting, in and out

In and out, until her mouth can close

Can become her own again, and she is

Relieved,

Relieved when the door closes

Behind him with a finality that means she can

Rest for now.

My first was a hand—

I remember the blonde

Hair that dotted his knuckles, how his long

Slender fingers made his hand too big to

Hold, and how he asked me,

My sixteen year old body newly budding

Breasts, newly bleeding, newly dating—

I was a late bloomer in everything but

Spirit, so when he asked me, eyes too wide,

Do you want to play the firetruck game?

I cocked my head, what’s that?

To which he responded by grabbing

My baby-fatted calf,

Breath uneven, a stuttered inhale

That never gets enough air down,

He kept his eyes on me, my body

A paper moth pined to a board,

Wings splayed open, too open,

His pupils too dilated

Eyes slitted in predatory intent, yet at the time,

I thought in adoration,

And as he moved his too-big hands

Up my leg, his too-long fingers

Cupping my knee in the callused

Cold basin of his palm,

I looked away, remembering the sensation

Of being eight years old and losing

My mother in the grocery store, acute

Panic coloring everything, the feeling of

Unspooling, of coming apart in frenzied

Fear, that is what this

Moment felt like as

His eyes turned hard, unfeeling, as he passed

Over the valley of my thigh,

I tried to shift my legs, to turn away,

Unpin my body from the board, I had

Hoped he'd get the message, because

My little mouth, timid and young and scared

Of doing the wrong thing, of being

The wrong thing, had yet to feel comfortable

Fitting no between my tongue

And the tender roof of my mouth,

But he was nimble, brushing up,

Up, up, always up,

He paused, said, say red,

Play the game, sweetie, and

My mouth dried out at the word,

Red, a whisper of dust sliding out between

The crack in my lips, I said

Red when I meant ‘help,’ red

When I meant ‘stop,’ and the

Blonde boy had laughed, a

Bitter sound burning

Like a bile rising in the

Gut, and my body remembers,

Remembers the shutter, remembers

The roaring of my blood

In my ears as his hand

Wrapped around the apex of my thigh,

Fingertips grazing over my center,

Sensitive to the touch, recoiling from the

Proprietary stroke, from the claiming

Of my body, of my girl-ness, and I can’t forget

The memory of how he squeezed, laughing,

Oh sweetie, a syrupy, male grin,

Firetrucks don’t stop at red lights.

‍