Beast

I want to be a beast.
Boys like to tell me that I'm pretty
and petite, but I want to be a beast.
And I don't mean to come off as that girl,
you know, the one who tries to make her
trauma sound pretty, but I'll be damned if I don't make something pretty out of my trauma.
somebody told me once that my smile
was inviting, full of shiny, perfect pearls,
but I want a bloody barbed wire smile.
A warning.
I was once the little girl in her bedroom
who dared to whine, loud enough to wake
her father, my eyes wide like stop signs,
flashing red like stoplights.
But I want to be the beast that never fears
to bark, like touch me and I'll bite your hands off.
I remember my stepfather's bark better
than I remember my own.
I remember that corner behind the side table in his bedroom where I hid and dialed 911 on my iPod,
but I was too afraid to actually call,
maybe because I didn't know what to say,
or maybe because I didn't want him to hit me, too.
It's been 7 years and I can still taste the
acid of regret on my tongue.
7 years, and I am still in that room.
7 years, and I still haven't forgiven my mother for forgiving him.
The first time I was hospitalized,
mom said she couldn't remember me
being in the room.
Mom tells the therapists it was only one
time,
as if that wasn't the hand she once took
pride in holding.
If I could speak to my mother about it now,
without feeling like a burden,
I would remind her that the warning signs
in a person should not be mistaken for butterflies.
That it is not her job to fix somebody else's broken,
that what happened to her does not make her broken, no,
What happened to my momma forced the  beast out of her throat,
my momma - she became the
beast.
And I want to be the beast.
I want Medusa to claw her way out of my throat.
I want her to confront every person  
who ever trespassed their way into
the goddess of my body.
I want to be all that bark, all that bite,
all that growl, and no I will not roll over
for you.
See, I want to be that dog in the neighbors
lawn that everybody is afraid of,
not because I am mean, but because I am angry.
And I want to be angry without tasting my stepfather's 12-pack on my tongue.
I want to be angry without being told that angry women are unpleasant, because
you were the one who showed up uninvited on the doorstep of this woman's body.