In Defense of Helga G. Patacki
In her defense, your honor,
when someone grows up abused--
that is to say
defining lovable
as everything they are not--
you’re gonna do some off the wall shit.
In her defense, your honor,
she’s just a child.
Which doesn’t excuse the behavior but does
require us to examine it.
In her defense, your honor,
she did try to get some of it out
in poems
and shrines
and collecting every kindness
he ever gave her.
She did try.
In her defense, your honor,
she does have heart.
So much that
her knees are sticky
from the flood it creates.
And one day
she could figure out that
her feeling
is not ten sizes too big
for her too small chest.
She could figure out that
the world was just too weak
to hold her ache.
In her defense, your honor,
when you like-like someone and
that is the only good in your life
you will hold onto that like-like
until you can make it love
until you can make sure it will not run away.
In her defense, your honor,
she did not know that holding that long
turned to squeezing so quick.
She did not know that caring like that
would make it stop breathing.
In her defense, your honor,
the prosecution is correct.
The name-calling and shoving
and spitballs and threats from
ol’ betsy and the five avengers
are wrong, yes,
but, your honor, what in her life has forced her
to believe the only way to speak true
is through violence?
In her defense, your honor,
if you take a look at her home life,
we all know
her family was not going to teach her
the right
way to do this.
And you can't punish her for wanting.
For longing for
the good beating
shining in the injured’s chest
after years of sculpting
hearts from shit.
In her defense, your honor,
no one got hurt
--permanently--,
aside from the defendant
and in her case, she won't even
realize that until years later.
In my defense, your honor,
life during trauma demands language
no one wants to learn to speak.
In our defense, your honor,
you cannot blame only us for the blood
when no one answered our screaming.
ALEXIS SMITHERS is a queer black writer from the DMV. Their work can be found in BE ABOUT IT Zine, Rising Phoenix Press, and Freezeray Press among others. They will attend LAMBDA Literary Retreat for Emerging Writers as a Young Adult Fellow in summer 2016. They tweet at @DangerLove12.
ALLI "SKIRTZZZ" WHITE is an independent business owner and freelance artist who resides on a mountain in Northwestern Idaho. When she's not talking to the wild turkeys, she's probably drawing cute girls. Her website is skirtzzz.com