By Button Poetry
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:06
Detective Brown hands me the pen and the paper
00:09
to write my statement on,
00:12
and the ink glides much too easily.
00:15
My hand begins to write faster
00:17
than my eyes understand what the words say.
00:21
The only thing worse than holding in a time bomb secret for 16 years
00:26
is the moment you realize it obliterated everything inside of you
00:29
without ever having to explode at all.
00:33
But this was that moment it finally did.
00:35
And the truth burst its way onto one page.
00:38
I start with what I know:
00:40
name, gender, birth date, date and time of incident.
00:44
Lalli Mangum, female, July 3rd, ’97, August 2002–
00:50
all legal legits stern solemn,
00:53
like I was writing on my own autopsy report.
00:57
The soul of a five-year-old begins thumping
01:00
in the center of my chest,
01:01
and I mistake it for a heartbeat.
01:05
She is beating so hard, and the ink glides too easily.
01:09
It makes a perfect, clean line down my torso
01:13
and splays me open under the fluorescent lights.
01:16
And it’s awkward, dare I say, painful
01:20
to open up in this way
01:22
because I’m still alive, and so is she.
01:25
Her voice is wailing and bouncing on the corners of this coroner’s office–
01:29
I mean, questioning room.
01:34
She takes the pen and writes.
01:36
Name: Lalli McDolly, name, help,
01:38
gender, sunflower, birthday, fireworks, birthday, summer, birthday,
01:42
pool party at Romena’s house,
01:44
swimming suit ruined, ripped off.
01:46
Date and time, now, right now.
01:48
Date and time, all the time.
01:50
And who’s got the time?
01:51
“Alice in Wonderland” is on.
01:52
My shirt is off, her father’s awake, my father is at work.
01:55
Romena’s asleep.
01:58
The next portion says, “Please describe in your own words what happened
02:02
and any details you remember.”
02:05
And I remember.
02:07
But she and I do not know what to write here.
02:10
She and I want to cover this portion in scribbles and doodles and tears
02:14
and truth and truth and nothing but the truth.
02:17
But how do you write a truth that turns you inside out
02:19
like a forgotten sock behind the washing machine,
02:21
without just deciding to leave yourself there
02:23
behind the washing machine?
02:25
And how do I write or tell or truth or confess
02:27
or say anything about the time
02:28
Romena’s father sat me on top of the washing machine
02:31
without feeling like I’m inside of a running washing machine?
02:35
I wonder how I kept the silent weight of all of this on a toddler
02:40
and why it took me over ten years
02:41
to lift this unnecessary sarcophagus off my own back.
02:47
And somehow, through all this spinning,
02:50
coherent sentences stitch themselves onto the paper.
02:52
I remember writing a statement on a paper,
02:54
cold and harsh and past tense,
02:57
like the soul of that five-year-old is dead.
03:00
And she’s not.
03:01
She’s still here, haunting and wailing and rooting for me,
03:07
praying for the ink to glide easily.
03:09
I am still stitching myself back together every day.
03:13
But there’s no more ticking of time bombs,
03:16
just the thumping and echoing.
03:19
And she’s still here, she’s still here.
03:23
(applause and cheers)
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video