How to Turn Someone in an Interrogation

Rule #1: Look for what
makes them human. Ask
about their mother parent.
Not everyone has
a mother. Find common
ground, shared experiences.
Tell them about your
childhood surgery—
stress how hard it was
to recover. Even if their
body has never been cut,
they can imagine.
Show them scars;
they’ll know it hurt.
Share enough details
to make it feel real;
invent the rest. After pain,
offer reprieve. Often,
this brief kindness is
all they need to trust.

Rule #2: Be patient.
It will take years time
to find exactly what
you’re looking for. After,
exploit the soft spot;
this is the torture
vulnerability everyone
wants to avoid. We can’t
see it, but we’re already
walking around with
numbers over our head,
a red digital countdown
marking the moments left,
like a shot clock telling
us to hurry. Like a timer
on a wired bomb
impossible for us to
disarm. We’re all just
one conversation away
from breaking.

*

Marissa Glover lives in Florida, where she teaches at Saint Leo University and serves as co-editor of Orange Blossom Review and a senior editor at The Lascaux Review. Marissa’s creative work was most recently published in Rattle and her poem “The World Asks Too Much of Mothers,” first featured in Whale Road Review, is a 2020 Best of the Net Finalist. Her full-length poetry collection, LET GO OF THE HANDS YOU HOLD, was released by Mercer University Press on April 1, 2021. You can follow Marissa on Twitter and Instagram at _MarissaGlover_.