Is This How You Like It?

It was so long ago for you,
I'm surprised you even remember between all the little sweets you must have had before and after me
the piles of skins that stuffed you full for touch but I remember what you've forgotten

It was the thirty-first and the moon was full and I was but only eight running round and round on baby legs to your door

(I was the little witch, remember?)

you gave me no warning that monsters were real, no warning at all
and I, the little witch with her plastic broom
I, the little witch that was an angel inside,
thought it was just a little backwards in her little girl way
that the man inside the door said trick or treat,
because he had it backwards.
But apparently, he was asking for candy from me as much as I was asking candy from him--amongst other things,
and in the darkness came your rage, in the darkness came your rage, and I felt the whispers in my bones from you for twenty years after, until it was all but roaring

Never mind the tears.

It's supposed to feel good, it's supposed to feel good stop crying do you want someone to hear you little cunt

is this how you like it
is this how you like it
is this how you like it

and that question stayed with me forever as in rags I fell down the porch and ran with the dampness still fresh in my eyes and down my legs but I told no one because
running breathless in the bushes with the tears down my cheeks and the stupid white wire under my chin keeping the hat on my head was burning me

and it was all I could think about until I got home in the darkness and wept for fear as your question rolled through my mind like a gleaming, polished stone

is this how you like it

and now

It was so long ago for you,
I'm surprised you even remember between all the little sweets you must have had before and after me
the piles of skins that stuffed you full for touch but I remember what you've forgotten
It's the thirty-first and the moon is full and I'm twenty-eight and I'm far inside your door and your dog is dead and you are old.

I've got a knife.

Never mind the tears.

It's supposed to feel good.

And I'm twisting and twisting and twisting and deep in the dirty grains of your kitchen linoleum comes the scarlet billows creeping slow and thick and black
and deep within the acid of my hatred it all comes erupting forth in a violent glory, high at the top of my lungs so it cuts the stillness of the air
in holy screams of terror
and the words on my lips are tingling in a poisonous rage as the knife flies up and down:

IS THIS HOW YOU LIKE IT
IS THIS HOW YOU LIKE IT
IS THIS HOW YOU LIKE IT