There are always tells with an abuse survivor.  
My friend had a dog once that she adopted from a rescue shelter.
We do not know the home she came from before,
all we know is that she hates being left alone in a room with men,
she whimpers at loud noises, and sudden movements send her into hiding,
even now.
The first time you labelled yourself as an abuse survivor,
You felt like a sham.  
There was no tell for you,
It'd never been hell for you to relate all the terrible things that boy had done,
You forgave him.  
You preached your sins like a success story,
as if you mother had raised you with the right combination of strength and self-understanding to be immune to the world's poison,
you were sugar and spice and everything nice with just enough chemical X
to make girls wanna be like you.

The second time you called yourself abuse survivor,  
you realized just how unbroken you were.
You smiled and laughed and loved without hesitation. Broken glasses don't send you into a pit of despair, you don't flinch when you hear his name.
You don't even miss him.

So who do you think you are?
You, the one who started the fights,
you were the one who left him.
And everyone knows abusers don't have hearts to break.  
The boy doesn't smile anymore.  

So you stopped calling yourself survivor.
Corrected others as they told the stories of grander,
demanded everyone admit the demonic part you had to play,
you monster, you beast, you manipulative liar.
You are no survivor.

A twisted sister with no bruises or scars, who stopped saying no and pushed back doesn't sound like a sob story to me,
a strong enough spine to walk no matter how long it took doesn't sound like recovery to me,
a girl looking for an audience's attention doesn't sound like a grown woman to me.  


You are nothing but a misbehaved dog, so let them call you *****.
Roll over and beg for the forgiveness you do not deserve.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry

The first time the new one called you survivor,
You were lying on the bathroom floor shouting apologies from beneath a veil of hair.
He picked you up and wiped the tears from you eyes.
Told you, it’s okay.  
It wasn't.
But it will be.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.


- Billy Collins

Dry skin,
****** nose,
cracked lip,
bruised knuckles.

Shattered vase,
empty bottle,
hair ties,
leather belt.

Closed eyes,
stinging palm,
sore cheek,
***** breath.

One word,
one thought,
one plea:
*Stop.

There's something missing in this heap of hearts.
i'd happily admit he'd fall apart
without his special taste of what was to come
after every horror night he'd slept,
beauty truthful, I wish i'd seen
his glory days, our glory days
we breathe as one, and there's music to come -
but an unstrung guitar would yearn for it.
Something like diamonds or vague metaphors
like years of friends and friendly enemies that struck a bone like a tattooed hand a chord
something like that which fills the soul of rueful smiles and before they left -
he knew that was where he took his breath.
One day I'll come to understand why deprivation is my vice and virtue
and why good things come to those who forget -
but for now its grief for ghosts and phantom hands left unheld
that keeps us both waking during the night.