I could never sew but i've wound the navy cotton tight around my little fingers to remind myself what morse code was when you held my hand underneath the table. My pulse beats back up my arms and into the garbled knot where doctors might say the heart is.

I was six.

I'm sure that if i just unfocused my eyes to repeat the sight of your blotchy knuckles, I would have figured it out in a second. Your words were like brass knuckles that hit with the force of a bulldozer. You left welts. If you put my head through a CAT scan, you'd see marks on my brain that resemble the ones your dad left on your calves the time he took you out back and beat you with the belt after he learned about me in the basement. You told your mother we played hide and seek earlier that day and someone's hands dug into your skin by accident. 

Until I was nine.

Once, you told me "actions speak louder than words." I never heard the sound of your hands forcing my head against the concrete. 

I hadn't stopped wetting my bed
Until I was eleven.

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