the young girl came back home last night
with a vacant look in auburn eyes and
a sense of what it means to be dead.
she shows us the language of unwanted touch.
first, the way it takes words and slurs them
changes words like ****** to daddy
because you are afraid of where he will
touch you next and you learn
you need to speak his language if you
want to survive.
second, the way it takes aching and twists it
changes words like love and turns it to lust
but you are just trying to survive
so you stroke his ego before you can strike
his ego.
third: the way you have died one hundred deaths
and could not articulate them in a language
outside of the ******’s.
the rapists tongue is yours now
you know how to speak it but refuse
all opportunity to because you are so afraid
i will become like him.
after Jamaal May's "hoplophobia"