to the ghosts of summer winds

I love my room, where the only voices ushered in are those of my parents and sometimes screaming siblings; and, when I’m good, I can hear the voices of the sea.

Long ago, strangers used to hum old lullabies to me. My mother won’t sing them, and I can’t, so I just hum them and hope I’m on-tune.

Between the sea-sighs and my own humming, I’m able to get to sleep at night; but, when I’m bad, I go to a time-out room that has no windows and instead a door with a heavy lock. It’s those times when I cry myself to sleep.

I haven’t been good in months.

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            It’s autumn.  The slack-jawed ivy burns like earthen blood around the door.  “I’m no friend to human skin,” it warns, but I’ve no regard for warnings.  I latch onto the arch of its spine with my bare hands, and I tear it from its roots in the gutter. It hisses its final words and slithers down the wall.

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Baby-doll made broken, “Throwaway,”
kept close behind my closet door
locked stiff and rusted shut.
It won’t come out no more.
Bang!—
bang!—
sounds of gunshot-voices
choke me and explode in me. I’m in the skin
of Satan. I am sin,
and I am filth.
“Burn my crimes alive,” I beg,
“burn my body, burn my sins alive.”
and Throwaway comes crawlin’ out,
blood slapped against its face.
It cries and cries with swollen eyes—
“Mama, burn this place!”