THE GIRL I WAS SPEAKS, by Rebecca L’Bahy

Take my hand, the girl says down these cellar steps into the pitch dark. It was you, remember who turned out the lights who wanted to feel limbs tingle with anticipation of bashed shin or skull. You liked it down there alone, no stars to guide you. Liked to go deep into smells of must and mold, past the crevices in sandstone walls full of spiders, past the shower stall, its soap on a rope, hanging cracked and dry, past the tools on the peg board, holding their metal breath, watching you move stiff and zombie-like, arms outstretched skin puckered gooseflesh. You wore it proudly, the possibility of stumble, trip, fall, a scrape, a bruise, a gash from hurrying towards the sole crack of light. Do you remember how it raised you up? The quick duck, push, squeak of hinge blast of sky, bright tree, air, sun. Then doing it all again, just for fun.  

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Rebecca L’Bahy lives in north central Massachusetts with her human family and many pets. She works full time in the metro Boston area and recently finished her MFA in 2017, which she began more than twenty years prior. She has had work published in Brain, Child magazine, Writers Resist, the Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. © 2019, Rebecca L’Bahy