"Words"

Your pain is not important.

You can't complain

because Mother's hands traced hourglasses

and she thrust her hips out

and made smacking noises

over your full breasted figure

when you were thirteen

and Daddy hid his magazines

but told you the jokes anyway

while his eyes traced your full breasted figure

when you were thirteen

and Mom dragged you out of bed

and took you to a neighbor's house

because Daddy was out drinking

and she expected anything of him

he was a bastard

he might kill her

he might rape you

when you were thirteen.

It was only words.

 

You can't complain.

Others were raped

beaten

bloody

by fathers, mothers, strangers,

cops.

You were only assaulted

with words.

 

You've been called crazy,

divorced, fired,

your son won't talk to his crazy Mom,

lots of friends won't talk to you again,

but you can't complain.

You haven't been locked up, tied down, burned through

with electricity,

shot up with so much thorazine

you bled from every opening from your ears

to your cunt.

 

You've been lost and cold and hungry

but never for long enough.

You've never been trespassed out of the welfare office,

arrested out of the hospital,

shot for stealing a loaf of bread;

you

can't complain.

 

You have to heal the world

because everybody else's pain

is more important than yours

is more real than yours

yours is only words.

 

But

dig underneath the words

and you will find

a heart knotted like a trumpet.

You can sound that heart

in words

and the other wounded hearts

echo.

 

These words are blood,

chips of white bone.

These words have stripped the flesh from your back,

and they can rebuild it.

 

It is never

only words.