Plates - spoken word/poem

So this is supposed to be a spoken word piece which is why it's so long, but i'm far too scared to test it out for real before getting some sort of feedback.  it's my first attempt. I've got tough skin so go ahead and review it honestly! Thanks!

Plates

 

Let me tell you a few things about food and i

Or more importantly my food and you

don’t touch it, eat it, grab it, taste it…

Hell you can’t even look at it without my permission.

I’m not crazy, so please don’t look at me that way

Really, I just like my food

Key word ‘my’

Sharing is caring

and blahdity blahdy fucking blah

I have no problem with all of that but

You need to know that I demand respect

ask me first, or better yet

Wait until I offer you what is mine to give 

You see, my mother used to tell me

finish what’s on your plate and be thankful

there are kids out there with nothing on theirs

not because they were good kids and finished like their mothers asked them to

but because their plates started out empty

or worse, someone took what wasn’t theirs

leaving the children to lick their plates

hoping to taste the remnants of a forgotten grain of rice

imagining what it would feel like to be full 

I remember standing in the corner of my aunt’s dining room

waiting for my elders to get their dinner first

like a good little Persian girl

Waiting patiently for my turn

My uncle comes to greet me and I smile

with the hint of knowing on the corner of my mouth

Readying myself for a wince I know I soon won’t be able to hide

He pinches my cheek, hard, almost telling me to remember my age

To remember I’m not old enough to feel what I’m about to feel

He hugs me too hard too close too long

moves my fourteen year old body against his as if claiming me through the thin layers of clothing that fortunately hold him at bay

I feel my well developed breasts pressed into his heaving chest

His big belly that comes right along with a wife and kids rubs against me

He rubs against the core of me and I can do nothing to stop it

He shakes me jokingly against him as if I don’t understand his intention

As if his leg didn’t just slip in between mine

As if the discomfort that courses through my body at that moment is uncalled for

As if I’m just making it up

Everyone always told me I had one hell of an imagination

Making sure his hands fall too low on my back

Grazing my ass as if accidental before finally letting go

And I wonder how many times you can make the same mistake

how on earth in front of sixty of my family members

no one sees what I see

no one notices

as he takes what isn’t his because he makes sure to leave enough behind

so that I am the only one to know that anything is gone at all

all I know is that with each hello to him I say goodbye to a piece of myself

I eat my dinner quietly but my food is tainted with his breath

hints of cigarettes and green apple tobacco sneak in with each bite

I cannot escape what he took from me or what he has left behind

And all I want is to throw away what’s left on my plate

But I think of my mother and what she always used to say

So like a polite little Persian girl

I feel as though I should thank him for leaving anything at all 

Maybe it’s just the affections of a loving uncle and I’m just too full of myself

too full when there are kids with nothing on their plates

how dare I talk about the little that is gone from mine when I still have so much left

how dare I complain of the holes he leaves in me when there are others who leave nothing

I can only think of how I would feel if he ever did.

If the disgust that envelops me now would multiply exponentially

Suffocating me and leaving me as empty as the plates of hungry children

I can only thank him and feel lucky that my loss does not compare

Thank him for only looking with eyes full of desire

Only taking a spoonful or two to sniff it out

Lick his lips

and reluctantly put it back

But each time I see the grains of rice that get lost along the way

The taste of what’s left infected with his breathe

The few that fall off the spoon over ambitiously filled with too much of me

the parts that will never find their way back

and all I can think of is my mother

reminding me of children with empty plates

thinking of uncles that selfishly eat what is not theirs

take and take and take

leaving children hungry for something they can’t even remember having

for something they can’t even name yet

the sound of shame as it hits the pits of their stomachs

and the remnants of dignity they hope stick to their plates

like forgotten grains of rice after he is done and satisfied

the same way that memories of unwanted thinly veiled hugs stick to my mind

enveloping, crushing, too hard, too long

so like I said

I’m not crazy, really

I just don’t appreciate taking what is not yours

so when we’re having dinner

remember that I mean it

when I tell you I’ll stab you if you take food off my plate before it’s offered

You don’t touch it, eat it, grab it, taste it…

Hell you can’t even look at it without my permission.