Lying beside the safety blanket of an open fire
You ask me why I am scared of the CD player.
A question no one dared to ask,
As if asking was like the warmth that
Would unravel me bare skinned
Limbs against floor boards
Revealing the things I hoard under
The loose fabric of a summer dress.
I confess to you them parts of me
You would never see unless you
Asked that single question.
I bite my lip, the tip of my tongue
Hoping it can charade its way out
Of these words, these words
I have been trying to drown,
to sink with sips of sauvignon blanc
Till I had dried the glass of myself clean, empty.
I bite my lip.
His eyes were like silver discs,
Scratched on the surface
Playing nothing but broken records
So no one could hear the fear inside my chest.
The melody of his muse would ring through my veins
so I shut my eyes,
Opened my thighs and I bit my lip
Drawing blood to my tastehah buds
To forget the thuds of his open palm
So no harm would come to me
If I forget to see, forget to breathe
Each night I would cry to the wake of the morning,
hoping tomorrow would never come.
For some, darkness is safer than light.
It wasn’t how they told me it would happen.
Slow, sober, a blur of moments
Woven together into a noose that would
Hang out my hope on the thread of a rope
And it wasn’t how they told me it would happen.
That I would go back to him when the darkness came.
That I would know it would always be the same
But I would never be the same again
He locked me in the closet for 6 hours,
Hands bound, mouth taped shut
And I never thought I would pray to stay locked away
I have never been so afraid
Waiting for the door to open to two discs
Reflecting the fear that was living in my heart.
I don’t know where to start.
Fear is an emotion that can scare you
to silence the secrets wrapped up in your lies
Beside the tears you keep in a jar for no one to see.
What is that bruise?
I fell in the shower.
Why are you bleeding?
Mother nature
Why are you not eating?
Im eating later
Why are you limping?
I am struggling to stand myself in the mirror
Can’t you see I am starving myself thinner and thinner
So please guess what is happening beneath this dress
My womb is ***** empty,
There is nothing left inside me to fill
Nothing left that is real
Can’t you see I am trying to **** myself before he does?
You ask me why I never told you.
I bite my lip-
This poem has been hidden beneath the
Smile I now wear, under my tongue
Within my lungs, inside my fingertips
That itch to write the truth
But I know if I say these words,
Unseal my lips, this story is real.
Tracing the lines he left on my body
I know he’s telling me to not pick up the pen
And that is exactly why I have picked up my pen.
I don’t want to condemn the people who ****,
Who try to escape the law
With threats to their victims
Hidden beneath words disguised as love
I don’t see myself as a victim anymore.
Him. He. That man. That boy.
He isn’t me.
I cannot blame myself for what happened.
You cannot blame yourself for what happened
Between closed doors, open alleys,
The bedroom in your own home
With your parents on the same floor.
People ask me why I am scarred
And I say these are not scars
These are my battle wounds
From a fight I thought I lost,
From a life I thought I tossed aside
From a time when I didn’t know if I was even alive anymore.
I didn’t survive, I am tired of being told
I am lucky to be alive to survive to be normal
The sad thing is, this is what is becoming normal
for too many women and men
and when are we going to make it stop?
Stop is a word so many know too well.
My ****** still lives in my bones.
He’s made it his home to roam,
To decorate and play the same song
Each night over and over and over.
I never invited him in.
I couldn’t escape my ****
But maybe it could have been prevented
If we teach our children what it means to have consented
That consent cannot be confused with silence
Why are children still not being taught
That ****** violence should never be silenced?
Instead of questioning what I was wearing
We need to start caring that 1 in 6 are sexually abused,
we have got used to a culture where we remove
a persons right to question whether this is normal.
This is not normal.
This is never normal.
When are we all going to stand up and say stop.
We need to stand up and say stop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2q3IPH7SE0