Sweetheart, Don’t let me see you holding hands; you’re not that type. Don’t make out in the house. If you kiss the boys, don’t let me know – just keep your tongue in. Drink water and milk but never wine. Gay boyfriends are the best kind. I was raped. You could be too. Lock your kitchen window. Scream all the furies into your pillow and listen to Barbra Streisand records. Fall in love with a man twelve or thirteen years older who is your own personal policeman, your own Celtic knight. Drop your eyes when you stand, naked, in front of the mirror. Eat cheese, crackers, and a pickle for dinner every night. Look to the left but not to the right – or to the right but not the left. Let them tear out your ovaries and hang them in your closet behind your bathrobe as a reminder of the pain. Be your father’s stranger. Be your mother’s best friend so she is rarely your mother. Be her lung so without you she can’t breathe. And remember, darling, that I love you,

09/05/2004

Author's Note: My mother was raped by two men at knifepoint when I was 3 years old, sleeping in the next room. I found this out when I was a mid-teenager. I always felt like my mother's rape psychically connected me with her and I, through osmosis, somehow "felt" the same shame and fear. I know for a fact that the rape colored how I grew up, sexually.

Posted on 09/05/2004
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