i laid on the bed completely defeated
with tears in my eyes and a handprint that left my skin heated.
i said no, and i meant it.
but you begged, you just couldn't accept it.
after you ****** me and used me at your disposal
you turned away from me and the phone screen lit up your face
so i turned my back on you and cried into stained sheets.
i never looked at my body the same
after you branded my body with your all-too-common name.

i still remember the first time
that someone thought my body
was their property
my first girlfriend pressed her hand into my throat,
tightening her fingers
like she wanted to leave her prints there
but all that was left were bruises
that i had to explain away to my mother
a boy i just met grips my hair
he shoves me to the ground
i can still feel the branches pressing into my knees
his calloused fingers wiping away my tears
as he tells me to be a good girl
i want to be a good girl
i’m scared to not be a good girl
but i know i’m not
because good girl doesn’t shove her fingers down the back of her throat
digging like if she can go deep enough
she might find hidden treasure
good girl doesn’t feel hands forcing their way up her shirt
and think “he’s not going to stop
so i might as well let him”
good girl doesn’t feel ***** all the time
good girl doesn’t have fingerprints engraved on her skin
like tattoos
good girl doesn’t feel phantom hands
pushing their way up her skirt
if she sits a certain way
a good girl wouldn’t let that happen to her
a good girl doesn’t let her body
get rented out like a hotel room
a good girl is no one’s property

Oh, how would it be...
to have a body
you never touched?

Would my skin not flake away?
Would my eyes stop pacing...
Only to avoid you?

Soft skin is always missed
But the throbbing between my thighs
Will forever stay; unforgotten

I wish to feel pleasure
Where there was pain
As he touches my curves...

Six months with someone new
And my my mind still disappears
In the blue sheets.

Oh, how would it be
To have a body
You never touched...
And Instead he did.

Sometimes, in the shower
I think of all the hands I have let touch me
And have to scrub myself so hard my skin blisters,
Use my nails like a blunt knife, try to tear into a new skin
One they have never seen
I'm reminded of all the ways I have said no with my body,
All the times it was ignored,
And turn the water so hot I feel hell singing in my blood.
I hear all the ways I said no with my tongue,
All the times it was ignored,
Bite down on lips that never spoke loud enough
I’d sever this useless muscle from my mouth
If only I hadn’t already hidden the razors.
But sometimes, in the shower
I think of the times I have touched myself
Ran fingers over a soft-skinned body
That could not do more to save me
And I remind myself that this precipice of hatred,
The dancing cliff-edge of blaming myself
Should not lead to scars and blood in the drain
I think of all the ways the water has held me
Has embraced me for hours and asked me to give nothing in return
In these moments I know a body is just flesh
This sinew and marrow carcass of me
Is blameless for the reaching hands
Of the ****** and rotten bodies of them
It’s just a frightened body
And I forgive it
I forgive it

tender beatings
delicate bones
beautiful tears
comforting pain
consented ****
willing victim

.esnes sekam lla ti dna

you played the cards
i was drunk and falling in love
you took my will
my will to love from my lips
i mistook your lust for love
will i ever learn the difference