Manual for Growth & Recovery: Lunchtime, Fourth Grade

Prepare for interrogation. 
Better not get any tattoos. 
They give you away. Better 
learn to like rope burn. Straw-
berry kisses. Better train-up 
for silence; learn the thick cool
of ice cream so it fills the mouth 
on command. You’ll need some
-thing for the dry hole (once 
screaming) when they turn from 
the lash to the burrow to the drip,
the drip, the bucket-breathing, tooth 
pulled and wet on the floor. Sleep 
forbidden by one month’s long day.

Prepare to whimper like you 
mean it, prepare to face the CIA. 
Prepare for the alias and clenched 
fist that picks you up from school, 
from the bus stop, the back step, 
and sets you down, barefoot and 
ankle-deep in mud. Another hand 
raises a cigarette to your lips—
practice, now, breathe with your nose 
so that the tempting mouth won’t bite, 
so that crackling tobacco won’t grow 
bright but might, just might, burn out 
before whoever it is who called you here
sees the ember, sheathes the knife, 
readies your cell, and halves the gourd 
that will hold your water, your waste.

Ready the room in your chest for emptiness 
so when they look and find straw,
they won’t think to search the hollows 
of your long bones—for blades, reeds, 
little pieces of pipe you fit and thread 
together into a flute. Build thick walls, 
use double doors, three padlocks,
a throw bolt. Fix the wiring so the bulb 
will flicker once, then glow. Make sure 
they trust their effort; practice hiding 
in the room, things like: honeysuckle, 
boxed milk, desire, a PB&J chewed 
into the shape of a gun, a memory
of yellowjackets and Jacob’s lips 
puffing, his body laid flat on the picnic 
table slats. The door could let loose 
untold any-things unless latched. Let 
the room fill to the point where each 
man-handled occupant dissolves, 
with time, into the walls.

Go supple when pushed rigid. Thicken 
your tongue when ether relaxes your wit, 
your eye, your ear. Don’t let their dentists
know your safe place. No beach, no park, 
no grocery aisle, no corner store.
Stare into the distance, no matter what 
your doctor says: look three miles away, 
as long as you can, as many times a day, 
so you won’t need glasses to lose them. 
For god’s sake, don’t need glasses.
They’ll make you first, they’ll break 
them with the bridge of your nose. 
You won’t see the barrel or the face 
of the one who spins you to the ditch, 
the contours and details of which you
won’t make out, not with eyes like that 
too long from lens to retina and closed, 
rolled back.

Get ready for the test, the photo of the man’s 
torqued neck. Build those walls thick, so thick 
there’s room for nothing within or out,
so when they slip off your thumb or break 
the door or ask you to breathe, they’ll hear 
nothing in your voice—and trust it.

Read more from Issue 20.2.