“The Firetruck Game” by Carolyn Connolly
Every woman has a memory
Of her earliest violation,
Of the first boy to jab
A tongue down her throat, lips unyielding
Until they must, parting to breathe—
More like pant, panting, in and out
In and out, until her mouth can close
Can become her own again, and she is
Relieved,
Relieved when the door closes
Behind him with a finality that means she can
Rest for now.
My first was a hand—
I remember the blonde
Hair that dotted his knuckles, how his long
Slender fingers made his hand too big to
Hold, and how he asked me,
My sixteen year old body newly budding
Breasts, newly bleeding, newly dating—
I was a late bloomer in everything but
Spirit, so when he asked me, eyes too wide,
Do you want to play the firetruck game?
I cocked my head, what’s that?
To which he responded by grabbing
My baby-fatted calf,
Breath uneven, a stuttered inhale
That never gets enough air down,
He kept his eyes on me, my body
A paper moth pined to a board,
Wings splayed open, too open,
His pupils too dilated
Eyes slitted in predatory intent, yet at the time,
I thought in adoration,
And as he moved his too-big hands
Up my leg, his too-long fingers
Cupping my knee in the callused
Cold basin of his palm,
I looked away, remembering the sensation
Of being eight years old and losing
My mother in the grocery store, acute
Panic coloring everything, the feeling of
Unspooling, of coming apart in frenzied
Fear, that is what this
Moment felt like as
His eyes turned hard, unfeeling, as he passed
Over the valley of my thigh,
I tried to shift my legs, to turn away,
Unpin my body from the board, I had
Hoped he'd get the message, because
My little mouth, timid and young and scared
Of doing the wrong thing, of being
The wrong thing, had yet to feel comfortable
Fitting no between my tongue
And the tender roof of my mouth,
But he was nimble, brushing up,
Up, up, always up,
He paused, said, say red,
Play the game, sweetie, and
My mouth dried out at the word,
Red, a whisper of dust sliding out between
The crack in my lips, I said
Red when I meant ‘help,’ red
When I meant ‘stop,’ and the
Blonde boy had laughed, a
Bitter sound burning
Like a bile rising in the
Gut, and my body remembers,
Remembers the shutter, remembers
The roaring of my blood
In my ears as his hand
Wrapped around the apex of my thigh,
Fingertips grazing over my center,
Sensitive to the touch, recoiling from the
Proprietary stroke, from the claiming
Of my body, of my girl-ness, and I can’t forget
The memory of how he squeezed, laughing,
Oh sweetie, a syrupy, male grin,
Firetrucks don’t stop at red lights.