5? 6? 7?
(can’t be certain when exactly)
14.
17.
18.

He told me that it was okay.

Some will flinch at the touch.
Some will go into a daze.
Some - I - will crave the touch of strangers, and many at that,
to replace those days.

He told me that I was special.

I became careless and reckless
with love on accommodation sheets.
While I mistaken their meticulously placed words
for love that I thought was finally peace.

He told me that it wouldn’t hurt.

It’s 2:52am and my timeline is flooded
with girls and trials and underwears passed around in court
as if it mattered for the verdict.
The bags around my eyes are flooded
with tears of anger and hatred
as if to beg for some kind of justice.

They told me that I should be flattered.

But the thing is we haven’t been okay since.
It did hurt but we still needed ******* evidence.
We were already special before they took away our innocence.
And now all we can do is get angry and hurt and wince
at the stories like ours that social media has evinced.
We hope to god our daughters will never have a jury to convince.