The Week I Failed
CW: sexual abuse, mental health, domestic violence
Don’t let Master get to you, said Mama
to me, a manifestation of Master’s greatest fear–
his failure–as he cursed about fucking that pussy
till it breaks, the way in Beef Ali Wong masturbates to a gun.
I washed the cum inside of me in my independence,
as I told myself, his rage is valid,
but so is my existence.
I will do better, I thought.
Stop ranting was what came out.
I cannot even talk about it, Master said, annoyed.
Then I walked myself back, closed the doors, closed my eyes
to the blood stains on the pillow I hug, flipping it clean,
in lieu of the doll a monster took away from me:
my understanding is skewed Master said,
in thinking words will save me, and he’s right.
We save ourselves with sacrifice.
He beats me over the head for being a failure,
not with the metal rod this time, but in a calm tone
the way I think God will speak in on Judgment Day.
Head down, I cried invisible tears of repentance.
Today won’t be a Master-sidekick day.
Instead, sadness filled me.
I scratched the remnants of Decadron in my body
and arrived earlier to the Office,
though not before he texted me to say he got his own breakfast,
my loneliness the punishment for my insolence.
Tiffany Troy is the author of Dominus (BlazeVOX [books]) and co-translator of Santiago Acosta’s The Coming Desert /El próximo desierto (forthcoming, Alliteration Publishing House), in collaboration with Acosta and the 4W International Women Collective Translation Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is Managing Editor at Tupelo Quarterly, Associate Editor of Tupelo Press, Book Review Co-Editor at The Los Angeles Review, and Assistant Poetry Editor at Asymptote.
The Marbled Sigh 