Content Warning: This poem discusses themes of childhood trauma and pain that could be potentially triggering to some. Reader’s discretion is advised.

Once upon a time,
a little girl cried
at the sight of a bottle
made in ivory white.
Her knees bled grime,
her palms — scraped lines,
but her eyes hadn’t watered
till that bottle arrived.

It grinned like a villain
at the dread on her face,
a cloaked angel dripping poison
to the child’s frightened gaze.
Daddy called it medicine,
just as he did his cane —
that love dwelled in discipline,
and healing — wrapped in pain.

So she picked up the bottle,
drenched her cotton on its lip.
She marveled at the sting,
the beauty dressed as a whip.
She pulled her clothes aside,
let the fragrant fire slip
over sores broken anew,
kissed by a cane’s tip.

Year after year,
she poured that liquid fire,
trading comfort for the agony
of her own pained desire,
drowning doubts of her devotion
under the scars of a lesion.
Till that bottle stood empty —
now broke and shattered, as was she.

Long, long after
that “once upon a time,”
a young woman stood staring
at the scene of this crime.
Grief and rage now untwining
from love sold at a price.
Abandoned on the shelf it sat —
like my daddy’s Old Spice.