I.
My father tries to kill me twice
before the age of twelve.
both times I’m a tiny thing on a floor.
He breaks the branch of a jacaranda tree on my skin
and I lose my voice.
In both scenarios he screams: I will kill you.
In both scenarios,
my mother stands by and watches me die.
In both scenarios I am unsure of the things I have done that deserve death.
In both scenarios I die.
I learn that there is no heaven for children that die at the hands of their fathers.
There is no heaven for children whose mothers stand by and watch them die.
Because maybe they deserved it.

II.
I tell my girlfriend of how my father has dreams of killing me.
She tells me when she was ten,
Her father stuck his hands down her clothes during afternoon naps
And held onto her privates.
I cry on her carpet. She says:
If men could rape us and get away with it they would.
Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
I cry some more in the dark.
I spend that week in a suitcase.
A man touches my name as I introduce myself.
My father destroyed the fight in me when I was a child.
I think that boy only raped me because I lost my teeth in a fight.
I think, I think too much of the past.
I think maybe if I had the courage to leave this body my teeth would grow back.

Link to the Italian translation