True, the first time I went willingly. What girl could resist his leather pants and rock star swagger, switchblade in his pocket, my name quivering between his lips? How better to escape Mom’s pretty vines than to sway in a poured-on miniskirt across hell’s endless dance floor while stretched skin drums throbbed? My gut burned from pomegranate juice and vodka. The goth house band keened. Match light flickered on his skull ring as he whispered smoky promises and blackened bottoms of bent spoons. His touch wiped out every ache or question. My straight-A vocabulary whittled down to more. Soon my dependence angered him. He gestured at my puffy eyes and flat hair. Turned away with a slap. Mother hauled me home. A month in rehab, then a shopping spree for high-necked shirts and frilly dresses. Good-girl life to slip back into like the cloak I dropped on my way down. Triggered by a song, a whiff of sulfur — in any season, broken ground inside me opens. Memory drags me back. Put off by my pink cheeks and filled-out limbs, the shades won’t know me now. I try to tell my mother what I saw there. How I lived. All that’s over. Let it go. My friends steer the conversation back to hair styles and food.
Stone, A. (2018, November 7). Persephone After. Retrieved December 2, 2020, from https://solsticelitmag.org/content/persephone/