“It”

I told you

In truth.

She thinks.

Me.

With words

Her lips too young to speak

Its name,

The vocabulary

Bigger than me.

Her.

Not in the spelling bee.

He was bigger than it.

She said it like I was taught

To truth.

Clear.

Eyes reaching eyes

That went cold -

Dark

At the mention

Of the too much

Thing

It could barely

Whisper.

Choked on

Confused

You said

Jealous perhaps

Dramatic, for sure.

You said he would never.

Just a vivid imagination

Something about

A kitchen refit

A new hob

The details escape her

Me

Do they?

You said attention seeking

In the bedroom

Or bored at school, maybe?

Who is to tell?

But it remembers-

The hand over mouth

And the not her scream

That never

Made a sound.

Does she?

Me.

The silent

I.

Scrubbing of bare skin

And the putrid smell of bleach

And she remembers

Leaving

But you never came

After me

Just to see.

To check.

It learned quickly

To stop

Saying.

Bury it

Again.

And me.

She.

Without

Remembering

Anything at all

The vodka

purified

The retching

Like liquid salvation

For a broken

Brain.

And the sun

Set

On a memory

I remember in snatches

From time to time

Does it?

When I’m alone

With her thoughts

And the hands

I never sought.

She let it go.

To my grave

And named the new it.

In the mirror.

It let it crawl into my mouth when it slept.

And in her ear when

Compliments came her way

It isn’t her

You don’t know

Me.

Now

I write it down.

She rewrites it.

It writes it again.

Just to be sure

I think

That’s not what happened.

At all

Then why do I remember

like this?

Not at all.

Me?

She.

Her,

It.