an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir

At five years old, I was a sensual goddess.  My hair was so blonde it was practically platinum.  I painted my nails a different color every other day.  The polish spilled over onto the skin around my fingernails.  I wore patent leather shoes with pink tights and shiny silver tights and navy blue tights.  Little skirts to my knees swayed back and forth as I walked.  Inside at my pre-school, the Gingerbread House, I drew pictures of rainbows and unicorns.  Outside was playtime with Henry in the teepee. 

Henry had long shaggy red hair.  In the teepee, our little hideaway glowed with sunlight, but we were shielded from the heat. I could hear the other children squealing with laughter and shouting as they raced about and climbed on the jungle gym.  I focused on Henry’s freckles. I lunged towards him kissing his mouth.  I tasted dirt.  He must have just eaten some.  He smelled funny, but I didn’t care.  My small painted fingers groped his thigh, exploring the texture of his tan grass stained corduroys.  I giggled and kissed him again.  It was fun and it was our teepee.  No one else could come in. 

But someone did come.  A boy stuck his head through the small slit of the teepee.  He wrapped the cloth tight around his head so only his face was visible.  His eyes widened as he saw my tongue exploring Henry’s open mouth.  “AWWWW,” he began.  He reveled in his discovery and a victorious smile spread across his face.  Now there was something to tell to the others.  Now there was a song to sing.  The two flaps of the teepee came down and his sneakers kicked up dirt as he ran off singing:

            “Henry and Kirstyn sittin’ in a tree. 
             K-I-S-S-I-N-G 
            First comes love, then comes marriage
            Then comes a baby in the baby carriage.”

The boy’s voice was loud and soon the others stopped their play and began to laugh as they realized the truth of his discovery.  Henry was the first to come out of the teepee.  Perhaps his face was as red as his hair. I waited, not wanting to leave the cool shade of the teepee. Others joined in the song.  It became louder.

Finally, my purple sparkled fingers pushed open the flap and I crawled out.  I stood up brushing the dirt off my skirt, blinking my eyes in the bright light of the sun.  I looked up to the trees and noticed the sun’s rays shifting behind the leaves as they moved in the breeze. “Henry and Kirstyn sittin’ in a tree.” Actually, it would be quite difficult to sit in a tree and kiss.  There’s so much to feel when you kiss someone.  You really need your hands to be free to touch them.  You shouldn’t have to worry about losing your balance while you reach for them and then falling out of the tree. But I guess it happens a lot.  You can fall and get hurt after a kiss.

But, then, I wasn’t falling.  I wasn’t scared.  The song continued and I didn’t it let it bother me.  The teacher tapped the triangle.  It was time to go in.

 At the end of the day, I gathered up my drawings of rainbows and the green imprint of my five fingers and the palm of my hand.  I packed them in my purple book bag.  I put on my pink chapstick and then, my mom’s best friend, Grace, came through the door.  She came to pick me up everyday because my mom was still at work. 
           
​My teacher whispered to Grace and they moved away from me.  What were they talking about?  I stared at Grace, wondering why we weren’t leaving yet.  She wore her white uniform.  She worked in the kitchen at a convalescent home.  She fed all the old people. Her polo shirt rode up a little bit and I could see a bit of her stomach over the top of her elastic waistband.  Her hair was pulled back and the bobby pins were too big for her tiny little bun.  She looked down at me, then back to the teacher and nodded, pushing up her wire rimmed glasses.  Her glasses were always falling apart.  She scotch taped her glasses together at the center to keep them from splitting in two.  One temple was completely missing, only one leg wrapped around her ear. She looked at me again, through greasy lenses. 
​
I turned to face the door impatiently.  Why weren’t we going yet?  My ears and belly burned and I stared down silently at my patent leather shoes. Grace’s hand reached over my head to the doorknob and turned it.  I could smell her smell from behind me.  It was a combination of that day’s turkey and gravy lunch at the convalescent home and her own musky odor.  She opened the door.

“Time to go home.  Do you have everything?  You didn’t forget anything did you?”

No.  I have everything.  I’m not fallen yet.  

We stepped out onto the sidewalk and my patent leather shoes clicked along the path.  I had to sit in the backseat because the front passenger side of her old Chevette had a big hole in the floor.  You could see the road whiz by through the hole.  Plus her passenger door didn’t shut.  So, I held onto the rope that was tied in knots around the handle of the passenger door.  I kept the door from flying open.  I sat in my usual spot behind the driver’s seat.  Peering at the hole, I was ready to zip away from the school so that I could be hypnotized by the pavement that would move so quickly beneath us. 

Grace looked at me in her rear view mirror.

“So, how was school?”

“Good.” 

“I heard you were kissing a boy.” 

I looked at her reflection.  I looked at the tape holding the glasses together.  I looked at her blue eyes.  And she had a small hint of a smile on her lips.  I could see her teeth.  I looked away.  Now I knew what she and my teacher had been discussing. I clenched one set of my purple nails around my skirt and squeezed really hard.  My other hand clenched tighter onto the rope.  I felt its burn dig into my palm. 

It was the way she spoke.  It was high-pitched and sweet sounding.  “Were you kissing a boy?  I think you were.  Is he your boyfriend?  Uh oh!  Do you have a boyfriend now?”  It was a sugary sweet coating around something sinister.  Sugar coated judgment.  Frosted condemnation.  My eyes flashed back to the rearview mirror.  Her smile was larger now.  I quickly looked out the window and stayed silent. 

“What’s the matter?  Cat’s got your tongue?” 

The car roared to a start.  The sound of the motor was especially loud because of the hole in the floor. I looked out to the Gingerbread House with its candy canes and little gingerbread girls and boys painted on the walls.  The roof was coated with white frosting.  Cupcakes grew like shrubs around the school. Their bright colors blurred into one another as I blinked back a tear.  Little gingerbread girl freshly made.  I stared at the gray cement of the road through the hole as we sped towards home.  I wondered how much nail polish remover I had left.  Did we have any more cotton balls?  I wanted to get this purple polish off as soon as I could. 

You know your truth is powerful when they 

• run away from you
• tell you your own truth is not really what happened
• manipulate and blame you, ultimately playing out the role of perpetrator
• silence you by any means necessary

If any of the above apply, welcome. We have come to change the world. 

I am thirsty. I need the sweat that drips from the chest of a man. One who protects life. One who kneels and places his hands on my womb. Kisses my thighs. Knows this is at once: how to honor life and be nourished by it.
 
I thirst for your sweat. Your tears. Your sacred rage at the state of the world. Have you not heard me calling to you in the night, tormenting your dreams, begging for you to awaken? Have I not like the cool breeze caressed your cheeks? Told you that I need you? I want you as I create new worlds.
 
Instead, you press your uniform. Shine your buttons and your shoes. Yes, Sir. You think that is service. But whom do you serve? Do you serve drug companies and place pills on thousands of wagging tongues? Do you serve oil companies and destroy lives to extract death? Do you serve the elite? They serve their master too. They sacrifice children. Or, they fuck them and make them silent puppets.
 
I gotta pay the bills, you say. That’s what a man is supposed to do.
 
Rip off your uniform. Tear your shirt. Show me who you really are, not who you are supposed to be.
 
Nah. It’s alright, you say, your eyes fixated on Grand Auto Theft. You are in your pimp car and you gotta go and fuck some prostitutes at the strip club. You get points when you kick someone and you get money when you kill. No extra points for the strippers; that’s just for the fuck of it. But it’s all pretend, so it’s alright, you say, just one more mission, to make money.
 
Except you are needed to do the real mission: save innocent children’s lives. Protect those that birth life. Protect your own seed. Protect it from the chemicals in your deodorant and your smartphone in your pocket, the parts of which were pillaged from the Congo as soldiers raped women, tore open their vaginas, and broke their souls into shards.
 
The women are gathering the shards. They are making a mosaic. They are screaming and healing and uniting and awakening a force that has been silenced for thousands of years. That’s what happens when the pieces are put back. Moonlight bathes each piece in iridescent holy water. Sunlight shines through the glue.
 
I would never rape a woman, you say. You wouldn’t. That’s why when the women were taking off their own shiny buttoned Marine Corps uniforms some voyeur took their pictures and posted them online to a group of men who discussed exactly how they’d fuck each one. ‘Cause that’s what boys do. 
 
The Marine Corps says it will attack this problem head-on. Yes, Sir! But, Sir, what military strategy is employed in this situation? Is the attack on sexual predation a chapter in one of your war books at your war school? Did the Quigley prepare you for how to attack the perception that a woman is not human? We all grew up thinking that she is flesh to be consumed. Let the best rifleman step forward and shoot down thoughts.
 
How long will you try to solve your little boy problems just like your daddy did, with a beating and a disappearing?
 
Do you really want to know how to attack this problem?
 
If you truly do, then listen. The answer speaks. She’s in the whisper of the leaves. She’s in the ocean’s tears. She is the dank soil under your feet. She is the Mother Womb that held you before you existed. She is death. She is life. Do you hear what she says?
 
Listen. She is the space of silence. Do you hear?
 
Place your hands on your body. Breathe in the parts that hurt. The pain in your back. Your shoulder. Your belly. Feel it. When you are not on your divine mission, it’s supposed to hurt. Put down your pills. Pills were created so that you would never go on your mission. So that you’d be sedated. Like PlayStation. Like Porn. Like Programming. For if you weren’t sedated, you’d destroy them all. All those fuckers that eat children’s souls.
 
Breathe. Feel you. Feel her. Then, you will hear her say, “Step forward. Go now.” And you will know your mission.
 
When you do, I will lick your sweat from your bare chest and I shall thirst no more.