Choice in the Matter

There’s not really much of a choice in the matter.

I’ve been drinking,
the bottle open on the left side of the desk.
I will have one, one more than I ever thought
I would when I was in high school.
Eventually I am drinking for the sugar,
not the buzz, the rush, the anger,
for I’ll get that when I start brooding,
my arms in the air as I dance,
my mind a whirl as I try to sort it all out,
lift my body open, bite back the sensations
of being lost, of being empty,
that I need someone to break me
in response to trying to heal.
But I never asked, so he never did,
and neither of us will never know,
whether it would have gone down
just as softly as vodka.
I am twenty, with less flesh on my bones
than before, and now
I am starting to finally recognize the reflection
in the mirror, jaw square, eyes blue
behind the frames of my glasses,
moles trailing down the right side of my chin,
the inside corner of my left eyebrow
that has been going white since I was fifteen,
my hair just brushing the tops of my ears
but enough to cover one end of the industrial piercing
punched through the top of my left ear.
I no longer avert my eyes, smile bitterly,
and turn my back in an attempt
to persevere through it and ignore
the scent of fear, longing, and uncertainty
that seemed to perpetually cling
to the corners of my skin
and follow me through the empty seconds of the day.
That is over now,
but I am still angry, moving forward while
looking back, for I will need more therapy than this
before I can come back to it.
I do not wish to make it back there unless
I am a visitor, a ghost of a smile in those memories,
but even that will never be enough.
I will become what I can’t see,
a riot in the streets demanding access,
the open scream across the public forum
when you attempt to shut me down,
the voice that propels them forward with their questions
as we sit at the kitchen table, homework open before us,
and when you tell me to shut up,
that I have no right to talk, that I have already been heard,
that the issue has already been addressed, solved,
is over and done with, that feminism
is knocked up, queer rights on the way down the aisle,
the two solitudes of this country already
melted together between our flags, along with the economy,
the voting rights of citizens, my national identity
and my promises of paradise
that I have been given without any confirmation
that they do indeed properly exist,
you better have the ball gag ready,
along with the restraints,
for it won’t be easy.
I will become everything and anything I must be,
everything you have denied me
when I needed it,
in spite of you, because of you, against you.
And I will give it all to them
as I watch them grow, in hopes that we
will do a fucking better job than you.

There’s not really much of a choice in the matter.
Not now.