wildscape. literary journal

Ode to Bryan
by Dré Pontbriand

after Sarah Leidhold

Therapy isn’t all armchairs and affirmations,             EMDR 
tapping away the void                made by an absent father 
              who never left—sometimes it’s a sledgehammer, 
safety goggles, and $64 at a strip mall            across town. 
It’s a pallet I can’t make a dent in.          Someone needs to 
fuck it up before I lose    my shit. Vera makes an explosion 
of it in two steady swings.                               I don’t have to     
slay all my dragons alone.    Bryan hands me a baseball bat. 
He smells like Newports and wears a          No Fucks Given
backwards cap but he gives         a lot of fucks. He wedges 
his foot in the door. Excuse me honey,   you’re not allowed 
to close it.                             I need to make sure you’re safe. 
My cheeks flush with the heat of muzzled screams:       No 
and back up and are you fucking kidding me, Bryan? 
I’m a woman.       I’ve never been safe.                    I crumble 
under the weight of the words I can’t   say. Wouldn’t wanna 
scare old Bry            with the flame in my veins.   I knock out 
         a tail light,     swing a chandelier into                    space, 
send a platter back to 1952.     It’s not the same.      He pops 
his head in, Having fun?        Classic fucking Bryan. I wonder 
what it’s like,                 breaking shit for fun. A few years ago 
I said: I don’t really experience anger. Exasperation, perhaps. 
Then in Bali in a meditation,         I rewind           to scenes of 
a pig-tailed me palms clenched into   unswung fists, tongue 
blistered by bitter words        wishing themselves saccharine. 
I know rage but good girls swallow it.  Us granddaughters of 
the gallows, flames licking at our feet     we’ve been choking 
on millennia of                   muffled shrieks. A family heirloom, 
a Victorian corseted figurine                  I tee up on the stand, 
swing with all my fight, make bone-ash of it.           Fuck you, 
Bryan, on behalf of every woman                 who never spoke  
her piece. Don’t call me honey—         I’m fresh out of sweet. 

about the author // Dré Pontbriand