Poison

My first memory is of my knees throbbing, head bent, hands clasped over my heart,  praying, listening to my father telling me I was born too pretty for my own good. Born bad.
That I was a malignancy to mankind, a temptation, a harlot. I was three years old and
I was poison.

I raised my hand and disagreed in Sunday School when they told me to cleave to a man, to always obey. I asked why women were second-class, why we lacked power, and they told me not to worry. Have faith. Be pious. Good girls don't ask questions. Smart girls go to hell.

behind a locked Sunday School door, the man used to tell me that I was as beautiful as Bathsheba, as sweet as Ruth, as pure as Mary. He grabbed my hand to pray but pressed my palm against his pants, and I cried. I was fourteen and I was poisoned.

Daddy forced his whore of a daughter from his house. I was a shame, a blight, a sinner, and a virgin all in one. My aunt found me, loved me, told me I was good. And I was happy. I could be wild ask questions, take the Lord's name in vain.

But I wanted my father to love me, to be Daddy's girl again so I went back, and he gave me to a man. I tried to love him, and I was blessed with a baby. But she was born wrong, suffered before she could walk, ruined, and then she was taken from me, back to heaven.

I gave him more children because that's what I was supposed to do. But we were rocks around your neck, one, two, three. We drag you down my babies and me. I was oppressed, his will forced upon me, and I stayed silent to protect my children, to protect myself.

So I used drink to silence all the demons, the voices, the verses telling me I was a sinner and that God hated me. I was sick. I let the acid of his lies and my own self-hatred eat me from the inside until there was almost nothing left until I was alone. I was thirty-eight and I was poison.

But I refused to die here so I turned my heart away from him, iced him out until he froze. Then i finally realized, what if the poison I'd been drinking didn't come from the venomous snake inside me, but from the man dressed in white, standing before me with the ladle of water pressed against my parched lips?