Page 53 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

Two-Sided Mirror
Deanna Rivero

I had the perfect 4.0.
The soloist in choir with a competition coming up,
Princess to his Prince in the Madrigal Dinner,
Everyone knew my name, and I was the winner of Spirit week.
I have him wrapped around me, not just my finger.
I’d lose everything to him,
Everything.

At first it was tiny ovals
two hundred and fifty to be exact.
I counted each as they slithered down my throat
and gave peace as my neck started to close off

the saliva to stop me.
Instead of dying, I spent three hours projecting
into the toilet and bathtub, shivering with dishonor.

Fuckers. It was supposed to work.
Doctors said the childhood memories will never come back

I couldn’t even remember my middle name.
I sat alone at the lunch table after that,

and he walked with my best friend to class instead.
College is almost over
with only a year left.
My management job went from thirty hours
to forty hours and more responsibility.
I’m signing the contract to buy my brick home
with a fenced in yard for my dogs
and blue Ford Focus to have children stain the seats in.
After five years, it seemed everything would go to him.
That was the plan.

The voice in my head said to keep going.
That’s nothing, you call that a cut?

Even the tattoo artist asked why the scars
when he marked “Because when she sings…

even the birds stop to listen.”
Horizontal means attention. Vertical for results.

Nothing was sharp enough in that place
they sent me to not die.

Push those unpolished nails in harder.
You want to see me

only when I’m missing from sight in the corner,
when my arms are oozing.
I didn’t matter then,

No matter how many times I cried
help me.

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