He says “don’t worry, you’re drunk, I’m gonna take good care of you.”
He says “it’s okay, just be quiet, I’m taking good care of you.”
He says “drink some more” and you turn your head.
He says “drink it,” only this time his hand is gripping your leg,
higher up than it should be,
and everything is blurry and moving and vague
and you drink.
You say “I want to go home” but you’re slurring your words, and
he says baby, you can’t, you’re drunk, you have to stay the night.
You say “I don’t belong here,” and you mean your body, not the house.
You’re already dead at this point, and he is the vulture
circling above.
You’re already dead and he’s calling you baby girl and you say I don’t care,
you say just do it, I’m already as good as dead and we both know it.
The next morning you press your fist into the hand-shaped bruise on your thigh
and don’t scream.
You didn’t scream then, either,
not even when they found you with your pants down.
You can’t even sit with yourself alone in a room anymore
You tell everyone you don’t want to talk about it,
but you can’t stop talking about it.
Your body is a library of people who have touched you
while you were pretending to be asleep.
You twist your hands together in your hair as you realize this for the first time,
you have been a dead girl walking your whole life and you want to scream
but it’s too late for anyone to save you now.
It’s just a question
of who will get to the body first.
You ask him why and he says I don’t know what you’re talking about,
you were drunk, you aren’t remembering it right.
You ask him why only this time you look at his eyes and they say
“Because I could.
Because I was the vulture and you were as good as dead and we both knew it then
and we know it now, and
who are you to fight back against death?”
Marina Friesen is an eighteen year-old college student, with a major in psychology and a minor in English, who enjoys writing poetry and prose in her spare time.
Bird Turkey Vulture by Cathartes Aura