An ex boyfriend in college (when you left again) taught me part of ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ on

the piano after I begged and begged.

At my job they’re talking, the famous ghost that lives there is getting testy, setting off hand towel

machines. urging us to be cleaner. 

‘Cleaning house’ is one of the AA steps.

You continue and continue 

I do not believe in an afterlife or ghosts—

or that I would feel a hand squeeze my side 

out of nowhere while waiting to get my table drinks at the bar. 

no one to either side of me. 

There can’t be anywhere else but here. you, my reader, realize that, right? 

There is no after, right? 

We only create ghosts. 

The old men at the club— the men at the club — the girls at my club, midnight ballerinas — when I was as small as I

could ever be, told me my hips were perfect. 

sick, you mean. sick, sick, sick.

the men and their psalms, and their fingers in the indentation of my bludgeoned womanhood. 

They did not know my story. 

wayward daughter, promising college dropout turned stripper, I’ve let men break my life.

something you promised her at a young age wouldn’t happen. 

remember when your mother took you to M’s parents house and let you scream in the car about how you

had to drop out of a fucking credited college class because he was your ex abuser and his new

girlfriend sat two rows away from you and you couldn’t look at her with out having a panic attack. 

was it innocent then? you? 

never once were you. 

Some meth-head told me once, a dear friend to be honest, I had a voice that is comparable to a

harp. 

Which strings do I thrum to make Mary have a little lamb again?

with fleece as white as snow.