Shame

The first time you learn about shame it's with God on your Tongue and doubt in between your crooked teeth, scabs on your knees that aren't from praying and your Bible burning through the wood of your nightstand table. The second time you find shame it's naked and moaning in your VCR, burning behind your eyelids because you didn't close your eyes fast enough — because you didn't want to. The third time it's with your cousin's hand flat, flat, flat on your chest, the seventh it's struggling to breathe in between the place where his lips met your closed ones, between the place where his Tongue meets the shell of your right ear and his nose meets the quiet corner of your neck that you were saving for a boy you were hoping you could love. The twenty-eighth leaves a bloody trail all the way down the river that's in the side of town your mama always told you not to go. The twenty-ninth is in the corner of your lips as they curl into a smile and the feeling of excitement as you watch your cousin being lowered into the ground and you silently tell him in his casket that he didn't break you. The thirtieth is in the stare you catch a glimpse of right before you kiss a boy your friends don't trust right before you wrap your legs around his waist as if you know something about sex. The thirty-fifth time you bury into your grandmother's shoulders when you apologise, and the fiftieth stares at you where you stand tall in the mirror, taller than the first boy who ever treated you well and smiled at you like you're worth something. The hundredth time you found shame it was in the English language and the hard edges of your Tongue. The three hundredth time you found shame it wakes you up with your mother standing at your bedside holding your arms and rubbing each and every cut that goes down them, with tears developing in her eyes, wondering where she went wrong; reminding you bruises still bloom even if you can't remember who planted them there in the first place. The four hundredth time it's toxic and burning behind your eyes so you can't watch as mostly everybody leaves and you stay. The five hundredth time makes you stronger, and the 550th time makes your spine curve when you try to hide and reminds you you've still got a back bone underneath. When you stop praying the Bible buried underneath your bed remains quiet and Hell doesn't burn hotter, doesn't burn at all, and when your daddy calls you for the first time in 2 or 3 years you answer that phone because you won't let him know he hurt you. The next time you find shame it's in all the curves of your body that aren't supposed to be there, the way your voice wavers, and in all the words you can't make sound right, you remember that shame is a short cut to bravery, an excuse to show the world the desperate strength of a coward's backbone.