The Score

by Susan Simonds

Susan was born in Connecticut and received her MFA in creative writing from Adelphi University. Her poetry has been published in The Fictional Cafe, Vines Leaves Literary Journal, Black Fox Literary Journal, and Three Line Poetry. She was a mentor with Girls Write Now in NYC for two years before moving to Nashville, where she enjoys her role as an office manager for a learning center.

The Score

My body knows the sum

total of quick-quick heartbeats

adrenaline too sick to fight

too heavy for flight

So long I lived in a house powered

by anxiety, my fears woke me

from dreams sweating

worried the wrong one

was sleeping next to me

Years later I still feel ample

hands pushing me down, enormous

feet punting my stomach

I still see the miniscule shadows of small rocks and

twigs on the pavement, eye level with me

I still hear the car approach, the woman screaming

Stop! You don’t do that to a woman!

and you don’t do that to a man, either

I remember thinking

as I opened my eyes to watch him run

she opened her passenger door to let me in

I decided against involving authorities

[I believed I should carry your reaction

on my back alone]

as I sat in the woman’s backseat

staring at her Victoria’s Secret bag

how I hated its Pepto pink

inviting me to vomit, empty

my stomach of this incident, but I didn’t

I let her take me in

and back to the party

And you went free to tell lies

and I went free to therapize

and even now a part of me dies when I think I’ve spotted you in the wild

Q Train

Every day I do not witness

outlines of your eyes engraved in the left side of my brain

I will present to myself

a silver medal on a silver string

When I gather enough

I’ll stack them in a box

walk to your door

dump them on your hardwood floor let them bury you

so I never have to picture you

again

Soft Cell

your favorite song was tainted

love, and wasn't it just?

once you ran to me

[once you accidentally kicked me

once you kicked me on purpose]

then I ran from you

and it wouldn’t be tears

would it

that I would take from you

[mine would flood the riverbanks

of my brain, feeding weeds of disesteem]

but vitriolic words spat like venom

at any mention of how I felt

when you took me time and again

[for a ride, for a fight]

without my consent

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