For the daddy’s girl

Are you really so blind and deaf to how frightfully silent
our best and brightest girls are?
Agnė Žagrakalytė

when I began to write Stories
I wanted to write about you as well

I knew you were a good person
I’d preserved so much of your beauty,
it seems

but no matter how often I tried
the only thing I could bring to mind was

tobacco stained fingers

I’d see nails:
horny
talons

nothing more

then suddenly everything would collapse

it was like this for thirty years,
I carried it for thirty long years

how it tore at me,
how it tore

it still tears

I remember, you died
I remember, you asked me too,
not that we were close,
to come and say goodbye

I no longer
dreamt of you

but I was proud,
to see you dying

III

everything appeared normal,
normal familial relations,
normal home,
normal words at normal occasions

so why, why did it hurt so much,
when you passed by,
why did my dog go crazy
at the sight of you,
why did I only want to eat just like you,
to sit on your lap,
why was I always squirming there,
what was so beautiful to me about your darkness

it’s frightening she remembers this much,
that
memory of mine

it’s not up to me

pants, jacket, jumper
densley patched sleeves,
scents

the shine of worn knees
hair,
a narrow face, a moustache,
teeth
like teeth —
or no — like talons,
and predatory hands,
always ready to grab

just now, just now now, just nownownow

don’t be afraid,
baby-doll,
here’s a sweetie

browned lace,
a little table,
a little bottle,
ashes,
a bite to eat,
a chair,
a jacket

I scream in the night
waking,
bed wet,
forehead too,
terror and
cold

and she just comes and tells me to go back to sleep,
never asks what’s wrong

would I have even known
would I have been able to tell her
what it was,
if only now, after thirty years, the stench flows out
like herring

and more and more often, for no reason,
I’m overcome with vomiting

for many years I shouted at many men:
I hate your dicks,
I hate your smell,
I hate your taste, I hate you

I shouted quietly, in my mind,
swallowing them, one after the other,
for many years,
I don’t remember their faces, thier names

only how I hurt, oh god
how I hurt

everytime I agreed
to lower my head to their trouser zippers,
when I smelled them,
when I felt their palms on the back of my head
I suffered patiently —

VII

I remember the room,
the scream
I remember trembling
the whole world broken into shards
my little bed wet
my little dress wet
my little head wet

oh god oh god oh god
why does my protector
hurt me so

don’t cry baby-girl,
here’s a sweetie for you

VIII

after many years —
the same face,
whiskers,
hair,
the same blood —

clutching me in my own yard,
a minor

I’m afraid and I’m proud,
everything is familiar

he promises to come, to pick me up from school,
he whispers,
tries to touch my breasts,
like an idiot I laugh,
I don’t run,
I’m quiet,
everything is familiar,
here, take it baby-girl,
a sweetie

for years afterwards I tremble every day
when I leave school
look around —
where is he, is he here?
afraid he’ll come
afraid he won’t

I’m angry,
I thrash like an injured anaconda,
I swallow my tail,
I swallow myself whole,
I don’t understand

why must I drink like this,
why must I dance drunk on tables like this,
why do I run from those who love me,
to those who degrade me,
to those who can’t even bear themselves,
why are there pencils, cigars, men between my lips
why does my throat swallow seed and spit blood,
why do my breasts attract them
and where do these skirts on my thighs come from,
why do they rise, why

this isn’t me

all that remains is that cursed
day when I was born,
so broken,
so incomprehensibly hurt,
defiling myself this way

oh god

and they don’t understand

when you died
somehow you were able to look me in the eyes
like a beaten dog

your taloned fingers moved
against your sickbed

your lips trying to push out words,
I couldn’t understand a thing

there was a strange, expansive, unexpected feeling
like freedom,
like pleasure

without sorrow

you died

I was already long-dead to myself

I birthed three children
loved thirty men
or maybe more
was engaged three times
finished my studies, diplomas for my parents,
my work — for the people

I rebelled, punked, adapted,
was silent, moaned, from time to time I waded into the river to drown

I cried, because I was unlovable,
unlovable, because I wasn’t, I cried because I was

I couldn’t get it together,
could never see my face and recognize it,
I couldn’t feel my body: my hands, legs, breasts,
do what you want with me, I’m a doll,
I don’t have a self, it’s like god forgot me,
a doll

here, baby-girl, a sweetie
don’t cry, baby-doll

my name like a caress
when you say it
my man
already resting in peace

XII

a small mouth, acid-burnt,
that’s not the sky, that’s not the taste of the sky,
not a sweetie,
that’s not holy manna dripping from your face,
those are not loving hands pushing your head down

why is it so wet,
why does it smell so strange
why does he do this

don’t tell me this is how adults love?

XIII

I hurt

XIV

let it be a cursed memory, now that the door is ajar,
and let it be a blessing that I carried it for those thirty years
not knowing what it was
because I would not have lifted it

oh god, that this, this is why I am as I am,
damaged goods

and he’s fucking off,
and he’s gone to god,
or to the devil,
and he’s going completely broken

and I don’t know
if I will truly be able to forgive

or if I’ll vomit
vomit
vomit both him and myself
until I also die

I’ll divorce

Translated by Medeine Tribunevicius

Audio Version in Lithuanian