The 911 operator asked for my date of birth and I told her; a millisecond stretched
into millenia before she wished me a happy birthday.

How lucky was I, at thirteen

facing the icy stare of my mother as I descended

the same steps I’d been shoved into

just minutes ago. How lucky was I to begin my

teen years by making a domestic violence call from my bedroom closet. I attest that there is no better

wake­-up call than gazing at a police car, its lights dark as it cruised away after a cop glared

at my zit-­covered young face and told me:

    Listen better next time.

I never did search behind the leather La-Z Boy

for my toothbrush ripped from the mouth which berated my mother and angered my father

so that the same three-­hundred-pound man

who read the whole Harry Potter series with his daughter, the man who attended every band
concert and parent-­teacher conference (whether he liked it or not), pushed me

to hurt me, rather than chased me to scare me. I grew tired of fear, of bounding footsteps
behind me, threatening to break my bones with every crack of wooden floorboards beneath the
wide feet he’d passed down

    to me.

My sister’s lamp crashed against the wall and I dialed the silver flip phone. I sat down
on the driveway, dug my fingers into the gravel, and waited to be told, “You shouldn’t have done that.”