Samantha Lamph/Len
Deafening
I’ve bided my time,
binded the years,
pressing those days
into a decade
I can barely remember
as I live it.
I’ve accepted that I may never mature
past age twenty-one,
the year two thousand and ten,
when you pinned me, face down,
gripped my hair in your knuckles
--your fist
at the scalp--
& threw your wrench
into my mental machinery.
I’ve hemmed
& hawed, analyzed
each nightmare
& fantasized
the primal,
savage satisfaction:
bringing justice
into my own
two hands
the blood they could take
in fistfulls, not enough fingers to count
all the infinite ways...
And I’ve considered every consequence,
the collateral damage, and how it might compound
when an eye for an eye becomes
an eye for an eye for an eye for an
I don’t care who has to go blind.
I’ve stayed quiet
so long I don’t remember
the sound of my own voice, don’t remember
when to scream,
or how or why why
why me?
But when I do,
it will be so loud
you won’t hear me coming.
binded the years,
pressing those days
into a decade
I can barely remember
as I live it.
I’ve accepted that I may never mature
past age twenty-one,
the year two thousand and ten,
when you pinned me, face down,
gripped my hair in your knuckles
--your fist
at the scalp--
& threw your wrench
into my mental machinery.
I’ve hemmed
& hawed, analyzed
each nightmare
& fantasized
the primal,
savage satisfaction:
bringing justice
into my own
two hands
the blood they could take
in fistfulls, not enough fingers to count
all the infinite ways...
And I’ve considered every consequence,
the collateral damage, and how it might compound
when an eye for an eye becomes
an eye for an eye for an eye for an
I don’t care who has to go blind.
I’ve stayed quiet
so long I don’t remember
the sound of my own voice, don’t remember
when to scream,
or how or why why
why me?
But when I do,
it will be so loud
you won’t hear me coming.
Biography
Samantha Lamph/Len is a writer and cat masseuse in Los Angeles. She is also the creator of Memoir Mixtapes, a literary journal that brings our love for music and writing together in one medium. You can read more of her work in wonderful places like Occulum Journal, Moonchild Magazine, Luna Luna Magazine, Connotation Press, and Queen Mob's Tea House. Find her online at www.samanthalamphlen.com or follow her on Twitter @quandoparamucho.
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