Cherry Stained Silence

 We were so little. Too little. Almost the same age.

Close enough to share the same dress size; close enough that her cries felt like mine. Not big enough to stop it.

The bed felt cold. His voice was loud. The lesson—sharp, like gravel under bare feet.

We were girls; So small. Small enough to still draw suns in the corners of paper. But too small to be near him. Too small to be touched the way we were touched—I wished for numb. But by the silence that followed. 

It happened in daylight. It always did. With the TV on. With the Sun high in the sky. My sister. So alone. 

And then—a popsicle.

Cherry. Cold. Wet down the arm like sticky red syrup trying to rewrite what happened. To me. To her. My sister. 

He said, "Good girls get treats."

She bit hers until it cracked in half. I let mine melt. We both swallowed something we shouldn't have.

How do you say: “I was punished, then praised for surviving it” at five years old?

We sat on the porch like garden statues—two little girls with legs too still, holding sugar in their mouths like it would unburn the truth.

Her shoulder touched mine. And it was the only soft thing in the entire world.

I never told her I knew it hurt her too. I thought if I held still, If I ate fast, If I smiled with red-stained lip, it would make us disappear into something cleaner.

They tell you popsicles are for joy. For summer days. For scraped knees and bedtime bribes.

But ours tasted like forgetting. And I still remember the moment I knew no treat was big enough to make any wrong feel like right.