A55
Collective Memory
Excerpt from novel: A longitudinal case study into motherlessness.

emilou’s tongue is in my mouth

when her father calls her mother a bitch
in the living room.

her hands smell like the lavender soap
from the bathroom dispenser;
mine probably do, too.
her mother calls her father Ol’ Limp Dick
and he says “no pill could get me hard enough
to fuck something like you.”
my hand sneaks under emilou’s shirt
as her mother throws the remote control at the wall
and the pieces piece apart all over the tile.

one of them says fuck you
as emilou starts jerking me off.
her hands are soft and warm
but she can’t quite get it right,
either the rhythm or the grip, or
maybe I’m just distracted.
emilou’s father yells
“it’s just a break-up
with more paperwork!”
and her mother starts crying
while emilou wraps her mouth around me.
my chest pulls itself up by a pulley
and my fists squeeze into the carpet.
her mother calls her father an asshole
while emilou’s fingers walk the insides of my thighs
and i picture the inside of her mouth
with my eyes shut.

we finish at about the same time,
her parents and me.
emilou and i fix our clothes and hair
and walk to the living room
pretending that nothing happened
while her parents do the same.

emilou tells her parents
we’re going out for some food
and her mother says,
“okay, sweetie,”
and her father asks if she needs any money.
they’re both smiling
as if they had soundproof walls.
i’m smiling
because I just came in their daughter’s mouth.

Samson Manoah