The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Scavenger by Jessica Lynn Suchon

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content warning for alcohol abuse and domestic violence

Gaslight

We started fucking in places we could hide:
the winter-stomped wheat field, behind

                a stranger’s barn. I saw rain
on the windshield, realized love

was an eggshell, the wet rind of an orange.
I could not admit this. Do I think he enjoyed hurting

me? No
                and yes, and no.

I wanted to believe
                an answer was snarled in the blankets.

If we stripped ourselves bare,
we could find it and forget our hate

for each other’s bodies. There is no forgiveness.
We are still empty. He says I remember it all wrong,

but it happens again and it happens
again. He comes home drunk,

                knocks me to the ground and tells me to beg,
and we start fucking

in places we can hide: the winter-stomped wheat
field, behind a stranger’s barn. He knocks me to the ground

and says I remember it all wrong.
                He comes home drunk. There is no forgiveness.

I could not admit this. I wanted to believe.
                He comes home drunk. Yes. I saw

rain. He tells me no.
He says I remember it all wrong.