Secret Compartment

 

There's a picture of
me.

I'm 5 years old.

I'm posing against a
scratchy, woven, dreary beige, wallpapered wall.

I can smell the dust
and smoke soaked into the lackluster threaded paper that is the backdrop of my
life.

The old black and
white TV beside me is crowned with a statuesque armless candle of Venus de
Milo.

Venus straddles the
V shape of the antennae. 

She has no arms.

I have no one to put
their arms around me.

I stand in blank
silence for the picture. 

I am wearing an Avon
snowman pin.

There is a secret
compartment hidden in the back with perfumed cream inside.

I am a silenced
child with secret sweetness hidden inside my heart.

I am cold.

I am frozen in
sadness by the things I have witnessed.

But I am sweet
inside.

Venus de
Milo…Aphrodite…Goddess of love…I am unloved.