its alright if I am secondary to whoever comes before me.
its alright if you don't love me anymore.
Because I must, I must have a sine that sais 'use me'
And it must be my fault that you left.

Im sorry that I had a few morals, and I didn't want to have ***
Im sorry that I wanted to Waite till I was in my wedding bed.
And im sorry I made you do it, because my **** was my fault.
At least that's what you said.

Its not even a ****, I didn't **** you.
You never said no, you never told me to stop did you?
No I suppose your rite, I didn't tell you to stop.
You couldn't hear me after you covered my mouth.
And you couldn't see my face while tears rolled down.
And you didn't realize that the sounds coming from beneath your hands were my cry's for help.

I guess your rite, it wasn't a ****, because you wont admit it Im the one to blame?
No Not this time this wasn't my fault.
My parents still love me, what will yours think when they see you locked up behind bars like a vault.
because again I suppose my **** was my fault.

When I was born my father held me in his arms,
Promised to cherish me,
Give me the world,
Always protect me,
And prayed to God that I'd never meet a man like you

He prayed that his daughter would never have to flinch when someone went to touch her.
Prayed that she'd never have to mistake being property for being loved.

My father prayed that I'd never know the terrifying hunger that exists in your eyes.
Prayed that I'd never have to cry while a man claimed to be making love to me,
When all he was doing was causing pain.
Prayed that I'd know the difference.

He prayed that I'd never have to lie to myself and say "I wasn't *****."
"He didn't mean it"
"Maybe he didn't hear me crying stop"
"At least he stopped when he saw the blood"

Prayed that it wouldn't take me 5 years to even talk about it out loud. Once. With my best friend. And still act like it wasn't a big deal.

They say that love can mend your soul but my soul is still torn into pieces. I can still feel my rapists hands on my body and my mind sometimes wanders back to that place where I wanted to run but stayed. I know that i shouldn't let his mistreatment impact another's love but his shadow still follows mine and no matter how far I run he is still there. Love can't take away the pain caused by tragedy but it slowly washes the dead cells of my skin and leaves new prints of affection. So maybe love does mend your soul but it heals with fragments of everyone that has touched it so the **** is still a part of me but hopefully love can shine some light in the darkness so no shadows can follow and I can run freely.

II.

there’s a boy kissing your neck in his car in your driveway

and everything is warm.

you told yourself to never do this again, yet here you are, and all you feel are his hands brushing your hair away.

the sprinklers in your front yard keep turning on and pummeling the windows with water, and

your mother is on the other side of the front door

and your breath is heating up the windows.

it is summer. you’re twenty and irresponsible, wild and reckless. you’re hanging off the cliff by the tips of your teeth and you keep on losing the moon.

there isn’t much time to think past split-second decisions and sometimes you find yourself

curled up on the kitchen floor in the early hours of the morning: clothes rumpled, makeup smudged, shame wrapped around your shoulders

like an old blanket, like a machine you hope could fix something.

the clock on the stove is frozen and blinking, green light casting strange shadows in the room

and you’re so tired, and you’re wondering how you could ever make him understand.

III.

there is a boy with big eyes and warm hands who is holding one of yours.

he is driving with the windows open, an old red car careening down a dark street, and he keeps looking over at you

and you can’t stop smiling. he pulls over just to kiss you and you feel

*****, you feel wild, you feel sinful. you also feel free.

sitting in a lifeguard chair on an empty beach with the sky a perfect canvas of stars, your head on his chest and his lips on your hair,

you feel beautiful and new. you feel understood, you feel known.

he whispers soft words to soothe you and his hand on your back

drives you wild in the best way. you can’t stop kissing him and you want to fall back onto the sand and live forever in this moment

but there is always change coming, always, and it’s coming soon.

even when you can’t hear the clock, the minute hand still spins along.

IV.

the boy takes you into his house and you come home that night with bruises on your neck. you took your shirt off

and threw it on his carpet and you’re trying to forget how he asked to kiss your stomach

and you said "no" too loudly. you kept telling the boy you wanted to leave,

but he kept kissing you and asking you to stay, and now you haven’t slept

and you have to hold open your eyelids if you want to get anything done. he keeps telling you that

you’re beautiful as if it should fix everything, as if his opinion alone can cure you, but all you can do is thank him

and hope he can’t see past the walls in your eyes.

he drives you home and you’re wearing another boy’s sweatshirt, but you're past caring.

you wonder offhand what he would do if he knew, and that’s all, and you stop wondering.

V.

so often you have felt the ache of the world in your bones, sitting in your chest like a boulder, but you’ve always gotten through it on your own

and although there is pride in that, and strength in that, it is also lonely.

you can only fight so many battles by yourself before you reach a threshold of desperation you wish you’d never known,

and it takes hours and hours of sitting on the cliff’s edge before you can bring yourself to stop looking down.

it takes a moment for you to notice that this time, however,

you are not alone in your looking.

maybe this boy means something as simple as not having to fight alone anymore — 

to have someone in your corner, who may not understand exactly what you’re feeling,

but who always cares, and who offers enough love to help get you through.

VI.

it means

driving with all the windows rolled down while the sun is setting over the clouds

and the perfect song is playing. it means

running across dark streets because

you snuck out to see him and he is parked down the road,

waiting for you. it means

holding his face in your hands at one in the morning

and willing there to be an alternate ending to the story:

not one where you leave, or he leaves,

but one where we stay here, looking at each other, forever,

and nothing else happens.