10:05 P.M. on a Monday Night, inspired by “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” by Richard Siken
Every evening the ceiling sinks a little lower.
Another scene where the child learns
not to scream by splitting in half. I was
a hallway, once. I was a locked door. I was a girl
pretending to be a lamp.
You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?
Maybe this time I’m a chandelier,
swinging over a glass table. Maybe this time
he doesn't call me his lady-boy
with a tone that curdles milk.
Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I borrowed your good red top.
Sorry about the men and the fact I never gave it back after.
Sorry I turned the living room into
a theater of undoing,
all velvet moan and powder sweat,
and the mirror—oh god, the mirror.
It said Keep Going.
So I kept going. This is the part where the dragon isn’t myth.
He lives in a one-bedroom downtown
and smells like burnt spoons.
I go to him with my wings tucked in.
I tell him
Make me forget. Make me milk. Make me
nothing.
I am excellent at vanishing.
Once, I was someone’s baby. I swallow stars in the back of strangers’ cars.
I become that lady-boy with no name, no purse,
just an arm out the window and a laugh
I stole from TV.
Look, I’m smiling. Look, I’m fine.
What a sweet lady. Sing, baby, sing.
Of course he sets the whole thing on fire.
You think I’m a villain. I get it. Me too.
I watched myself like a movie,
hands opening doors they shouldn’t,
mouth saying yes when it means
mercy.
There is a motel. There is a wallet.
A man who wants to be called “Daddy.”
I do it because I need to.
I do it because I can’t stand the quiet.
I do it because the high
is the only place I remember how to pray.
Hello darling, sorry about the bathtub.
Sorry about the voicemail.
Sorry I called you and said I’m not me anymore.
Sorry I lied.
I am still the girl in the photograph.
Just bent. Just out of frame.
In the kitchen of the mind,
the microwave hums like an old hymn.
A phone rings. A child answers.
She says nothing. She does not cry.
She builds a castle out of used syringes
and guards it with teeth.
Crossed out: every time he slammed the door.
Crossed out: my hands, hiding the black and blue alike.
Crossed out: the sentence I never finished in therapy.
This is what I offer:
a match,
a vein,
a name I don’t use anymore.
Is this where I get forgiven?
Can I climb out of your womb now?
The bowl of soup waits, untouched.
The window’s still painted shut.
I tried once. Eighth grade. Then again,
last Thursday in the alley behind the club.
Forgiveness, are you out there?
I swear I saved you the best line.
I wore the good shoes without damning holes.
Come in. The floor is still warm.
I’ve made a bed out of diner receipts and regrets.
We can lie down, baby. We can pretend.
Just don’t ask me to remember.
A Cabrera's poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in The New Guard, Brain,Child Magazine, Colere, Acentos Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Best Travelers' Tales 2021 Anthology, Mer, Deronda, and other journals. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Award and adapted for stage by the Bay Area Word for Word Theater Company. She writes, teaches, dances and ride bikes in San Francisco, but not always in that order.
Lexx Goldenberg-Donahue is a psychology student at the University of Maryland. They are a writer who pushes toward the fault lines—between love and labor, intellect and instinct, survival and self-erasure. Their writing often explores the tension between intellect and desire, survival and sentiment, blending clinical observation with lyrical depth. Lexx is particularly interested in the language of memory, the architecture of impulses, and the quiet violence of coming of age. Their work examines what’s inherited, what’s chosen, and what aches to be understood. Carpe noctem.