The Rapists of Childhood
We caught them in bathrooms, checking the quality of our toilet paper. We saw them in our closets, sniffing our faux leather jackets from Macy's. They were the rain that fell from the gutters and dripped onto our dead grandmother's porch swings. We found small pieces of their broken zippers leading to an open window and when we looked at the moon, a new man in the moon leered. We found them stalking our father's depressions, mocking our overweight mothers, commanding our elderly dogs to obey. They gave us matchbooks from distant restaurants, asked us to sit next to them and talk about our parents' real problems. We're here for you when you need us, they said. They sat us down on their bony knees and taught us how to say our names in French. Told us, this is something a prettier child would already know.
