Trisha Lee

Trisha Lee is a character in the The Myth of Joey Getchie series.

Biography

A writer and poet. Also a foster child like Joey.

In Property of the State, she wrote a poem for Joey which helped him realize she was being sexually abused by her foster father. The poem is written in the form of a sestina, a form made up of six stanzas of six lines each, ending with a three line closing stanza.

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Mother distracts herself with poetry: Haikus about wind
Whispering and scurrying Through autumn’s last leaves.
I wait, but all she’s got for me
Are quoted lines about the contradictions of ice
And murmurs: “A girl can always use new clothes.”
I ask her to stop—

I ask him to stop—
But my voice flies like leaves on the wind.
He channels Mother with breezy promises of new clothes.
I don’t respond—I’m the girl in every leaf—
His waxy hands creep like spiders, their need as sharp as ice.
Eyes closed, I compose poems to myself.

A haiku wind blows, a litter of leaves lifts me
I ask it to stop—
My body slaps against a windowpane of ice
Raw, naked, and unwound.
“After,” he breathes, as I tremble like a leaf
“I’ll take you out for new clothes.”

My heart ticks, a broken clock wrapped in new clothes
A sound too loud to come from inside me
“Just think of after—” he breathes, and I tremble like a leaf.
— as if it will ever stop —
A trick, a trap, his voice is a pleading wind
Falling through caverns of jaundice-coated ice.

He announces himself with clinking ice,
Consoles himself with a gift: for once it’s not clothes.
I compose a failed haiku about wax and wind
And how, if only for a moment, I want to own myself.
I cannot breathe until until everything stops
I cannot leave—

I fall like autumn’s last leaves
My voice shatters like ice
“He’ll never stop—”
I gather the coins, the needless clothing
Shards of glass littered around me
My voice is swallowed by the wind …

In life, at least for me,
Events are like a frayed cloth.
They continue to unwind.

Appearances

• Property of the State, novel