Sestina for the bed-wetters |
Issue 11
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A sign of sexual abuse in kids is bedwetting, though I only knew I was waking up covered in piss.
When it happened the first time I barely even noticed, and slowly my memory of it fades, gone within a year. The second time it happened I woke up drenched in sweat, and I would lie in bed, the bottom bunk, grateful to be closer to the ground than my sister in case the monster tries to get me here too. My sheets go from warm to cold in minutes, and as the air turns sour I reach for my book of European folktales and flip to a random page, something about a shrew. Shakespeare took inspiration from these folktales, the most evident being The Taming of the Shrew, where a prince tries to marry the king’s eldest daughter. He’s warned that she’ll do nothing but piss him off, but succeeds in controlling her by beating animals around her, making her hold the sour carcasses as an example for what would happen if she stepped out of line. Whenever I’d gone to his house he did it too, once beating a dog because I touched it, as if I were the monster unable to be touched by anything but him. I was made to apologize, but I quickly learned to lie. In middle school it got worse. When I hit puberty I was wanted only as an object to lie next to in bed. During this time I found myself relating more and more to the mammalian shrew, wanting nothing more than to burrow deep in the ground, a solitary rodent away from the monster that stalked my dreams in a way where I’d smell him first and my body would freeze so to not piss him off. My mind harbored no escape from people like him, because even after he’d gone many stood in line to take his place. Hijacked by body odor, my nose recognizes only sour. At some point in adolescence my memories leave me completely. They sour over the way pollution makes rain too acidic to keep your mouth open under, or maybe that’s a lie I was told to keep my mouth shut on the streets. When my mother has gone to work I open my book, finding comfort in a once familiar shrew. When it rains heavy sewage fills the street making it reek of shit and piss. It doesn’t bother me, though, the only company I’m able to keep in this weather is my own monster. From highschool through college I chug Monster energy drinks in an attempt to stay alive. The memories I once forgot bubble with each sour sip. It’s the only way I can function now, with the memories, and I don’t mind that my piss is a sickly yellow because it reminds me of my ability to keep everything in as I lie in bed. My memories are all I have since her shrew body aged beyond itself, and any sexuality that was plastered onto her teen vessel is now gone. A part of me feels guilty, that after everything she had gone through, her body is lost. This queer body lives in luxury, consuming her the way the monster once did. Though small, though quiet, though solitary, by image alone I’m no longer the shrew. His smell can’t mean anything to me anymore, with or without her body, but sour doesn’t trigger me the way it did when I had to lie in it. I stand in front of the toilet now, to make sure only the bowl fills with piss. In my dreams I still frequent my childhood home, and though the milk has gone sour the monster still waits under my bed for the chance to coax me out with a lie. As my mother’s shrew voice echoes down the hall, I awaken to find my bed covered in piss. |
MICK MUERTE is a Latine, Taíno, trans-masc currently studying Creative Writing as a senior in undergrad. While he enjoys writing poems, his main passion for writing is through Creative Non-Fiction, where he often explores how his intersectionality as trans, indigenous, and low-income affect his relationships with those around him.
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