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"The Delivery Van You Drove Didn't Come With Warning Lights" by Bianca Grace

CW: Childhood sexual abuse, death


Chasie wasn’t the only game

you took fancy to, hidden

away from grownups

who partied in the dining room

where my school bag laid

near the breakfast bar. My childhood

devoured by a monster

with hands three times my size.

Memories of your beanstalk

figure breathing down my neck—

my growing buds, your prey.

You rejected my plea to stop

and my mother’s fiery bellows

to quit smothering my lungs

but no didn’t feature in your vocabulary.

I became a doll, lifeless

in your arms. Juvenile adults

still believed you were child friendly

and the red flags didn’t bleed

enough for anyone to lock

you out of my house.


I Googled your real name,

searched for a jail term, a life sentence,

for reams of young girls

you lifted onto monkey bars,

to leer at the skirts

that fell past their barbie studded ears.

Instead, the results showed your face

that compared my pre-teen breasts

to pincushions with a link

to your live-streamed funeral.


I took a pen and paper

from the drawer in my desk

that once sat a pink rock

you told me to keep a secret.

I began to write:

Passed away painfully,

suffering at the mercy of a miserable disease

that began in the penis and ended in the lonely heart…




Bianca Grace is a poet living in Australia. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit and Full House Lit. Her work has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Selcouth Station, Capsule Stories, The Daily Drunk Mag, Postscript Magazine and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter: @Biancagrace031

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