Together we swim,
Skin touching satin skin
Fingertips grazing knees and thighs
As my engine of a heart enters overdrive with glee
Her breath keeps me alive against the strain of our instincts

My breath catches and my body contorts
Until I am suddenly entangled with a hooded figure instead
His heavy limbs pin me against the wall and his hands greedily search through my home
I realize I am being robbed but
He's not a stranger

His lips warm my neck and I choke on his telltale cologne as his hands hastily break through the deepest closets that house my innocence, my treasures, and no matter how sternly I refuse, he shoves through the doors until he finds exactly what he wants

I thought it was hidden

I thought it was safe

I thought it was mine

He smiles and lavishly thrusts his hands into my special box
Thanking me,
Between heavy breaths,
for giving him access to my prized possession,
To my heart

But
when he asked for a taste
I refused. But
He insisted and
Kept pushing
Pushing
And pushing against the wooden door until it splintered and snapped and he could enter with
Or without
My permission

Once inside, I had no choice
but to let him manhandle my possessions,
I can never again close that door that He broke
To fulfill his needs and
To satisfy his craving

Although he leaves with satisfaction dripping from his palms
I know it won't last forever
His hunger will return again,
Stronger.

And no matter how much I invest in new locks
and thicker blockades around my special space
He has already stolen a taste of the core of my emotions that
That door served to protect

He will return again,
with a sense of entitlement to my insides
And I won't fight back

Because his sweaty palms and greasy skin have already leaked onto the pieces
Even those he had not yet touched
My pure and personal secret now leaves nothing but bitterness on my tongue and stains on my body

And now,
I still feel his hands, not hers
I hear his breathing

Feel his weight pressing against me,
His hands destroying my body

I become hysterical and
Tears burn my eyes and stain our sheets.

I see the panic in her eyes

She doesn't know

She doesn't know I'm ***** and broken

She doesn't know why

And I can't
stop
crying

She's scared.

I would be too

But I'm dead inside.

Radioactive ammunition painfully entering
My space that is barely big enough to breathe, I scream
"Reality anyone probably experiences"
And it justifies the minimization of my trauma while the
Real answers plead escape
From the corners of my soul
Leaving me decomposing slowly in a silent anguish as
Repeating abuse provokes emotionlessness
When will these flashbacks cease to live within me? This
Repressed anger precedes exhaustion
If only I could break through the dams which hold my suffering and
Release all pain engulfing
My lungs and plaguing my hindered consciousness and
I wish I could just say it
But
When I think of him
I cannot
breathe
Diminished by my own
fear and
shame
I've lost my voice
once more

So I'll try to spell it out for you

As I drag through life on my knees, bleeding
I try to unlock the chains that pin my body down
And while I cannot find every key to free me from the weight
I have learned strength and endurance
and other tricks to ease my journey

Though the years I have hashed my blood onto paper
Smiling as my emotions bled into clean sheets
Forcing the purity of the page to match my damaged and ***** soul
Yet I have never thought to cut out my darkest experience

Instead, it swims within my stomach's acidic pool
Remaining dormant until a thought or melody claws at its bones
Until it can no longer be contained

So I begin ripping through my lungs and intestines
Simply trying to locate the source of the misery
As it torments both my body and mind

And by my own hands,
The acid spills into the crevasses of my muscle and bone
Sizzling through the structures on contact
Until I no longer recognize the dead stare reflecting off of metal and glass
And so I destroy them by using them
To **** whatever shambles of my body remain

As I sit in a puddle of blood and feel the air ticking away like seconds on a clock
I smell the familiar perfume of death, nestled with regret

I promised myself that,
if I somehow survive another night,
I will try to face the thickest chains that bind me tighter than ever before
Those that continue to stain the ground with my past and
Refuse to let me stand without fear

And so I begin

so he had my number because we met for tutoring on Wednesdays after class but he would text me really late at night asking me the weirdest stuff i would politely say this is incredibly inappropriate and i would not like to talk like this with you but still around two am he would text me lewd stuff again and again then asking if i would go on a date i said dude i am old enough to be your mother imagine if
a guy
          received texts
          like that
                    from a girl
                                  insisting to do ****** stuff BUT
he
would
have
liked
it.

Nobody goes out asking for it.

When I walk out,
I am a statement
not be ignored
but not be taken
advantage of.

When I walk out,
-I'm telling you right now-
what you should see?
is one hell of a woman
what you shouldn't?
is a candy bar
that exists only for your desires.

Nobody goes out asking for it.

I never asked you to follow me.
I didn't want to talk.
I never did anything
to fall victim to ****** assault.

I want ya'll to hear me,
Imma say it real short.
None of you deserve
to fall victim of ****** assault.

So this is a message to all you men
womanizers
liars
'you told us we would be safe'ers
haters
scarers
self-esteem lowerers

NOBODY GOES OUT ASKING FOR IT

and if you are a guy?
believe me when I say
that when you followed me
and made that comment
          i didn't like it

and believe
when I tell you one thing

I DIDN'T ASK FOR IT.

Can I just write a poem that says "**** the police"
for every single line
for every single stanza
and leave it at that?

Because I'm imagining his next victim, because there will be a next one,
and how she will feel when she finds out that he had my former report
on his private police record, accessible only by certain police.

I want to scream, but the metal chain he put around my throat to choke me because
"ha ha you like that, right?" after I had already said no
is still there, so nothing can come out of my mouth,
except I've been screaming as loud as I can for so long;

One year and I'm still not free.

His body weight is still crushing me, still heavy; the bruises on my body still felt every day, my body a museum of decaying loss and my mind a perfect video recording that plays on repeat whenever I just
want
some
sleep;

Nightmares I wake from and can't wake from.

I think one of the hardest days of my life was when I got my **** kit.
I mean- you know- other than the actual ****.
I developed a stutter that day.
I blame myself.
I blame. I -I- I blame myself.
But I can't!

All of the "no's" that I said to him didn't matter, the police said;
everything non consensual didn't count;
it was only the one coerced "yes" that counted;

Scared for my life but, **** the police, right?

And all the times that I said to the police "yes" that I was *****,
collapse and boom like a bomb on deaf ears of police that tell me that,
"maybe you just regretted having *** with him."

Or how about when they rolled their eyes when they learned that I met him on tinder?
I gave them a smile and answered that yes, that's true, because what else was I supposed to do but tell the truth?

Or the first thing they said to me was "so then you had a few drinks..."
Well no, sir, that's not what happned, at all.

See, there have been multiple levels of injustice here and I thought I was doing the right thing to heal.

In my partial hospitalization program that I went to for PTSD,
that I got from my ******,
I learned that the "right" thing to do was to seek help right away after a traumatic incident so that it doesn't lead to lifelong suffering;
Quick help leads to a faster recovery,
and I've always wanted to do the right thing:

Like getting him arrested for ****** me.

But the police don't listen even when your body has been confiscated, graffiti marked by your ******,
and the police tell you coldly to just seek counseling because, after all,
you "consented,"
and that your ****** isn't a ****** in the eyes of the law.
A ****** isn't a ****** but is a ****** and he's going free.
I did the right thing but I'm still stuck night after night, waking up crying;
I wonder who will be next, and that person's weight is added on top of me;
The gallery of bruises he inflicts will just continue, and I wonder where on snapchat will they be next?

A suspicion grew in my mind,
not about my lover, as he slept
beside me, statue like, with his fingers in my hair.

No, it is the world that plants
seeds of doubt, what once I
thought safe is suddenly
the open mouth of a fearsome
dragon

He turned the streets I was raised in, into a battleground. Soldiers firing shots, unpinned grenades.

Another theft, a function vital to my survival. To be in the prison of poisoned, toxic bubble of solitary confinement.

We are a world that lets these monsters lure innocent girls and women to their graves, to die without dying, to ****** without killing...

To clamber through fog, walk blindly through a forrest, all pleasure and peace erased by a single act.

I may breathe still, my heart undoubtedly beats, I am the not dead, ******, in a haze of soul aimed gunfire.

Blasted, I crawl like a dog, licking my wounds, dreaming of revenge.

its always my fault
with my face full of makeup
bare skin showing
my tight clothing
my "female" attitude

was i drinking?
what was i wearing?
well how much makeup did i have on?
did i give him false intentions?
maybe i shouldn't go out at night

except

i wasn't drinking
i was fully clothed
i had little makeup on
i had a boyfriend
and it was in the middle of the day

but

even if i was drinking
even if i was wearing a short skirt with a small top
even if i had a lot of makeup on
even if i was flirtatious
and even if it was at night

it wasn't my fault

i said no
i said stop
i cried
i trembled

i went to a clinic
and the police were notified
but i was the one questioned
like i was the one who decided this
like i wanted this

"it's a man's nature"

no it is not.

i am so sick of hearing that.
my boyfriend
is the sweetest
most caring
affectionate
human i know.
he loves me for me
he respects me
and i know he would never hurt me.
it is not in his nature to assault someone

so stop telling me
it's a "man's nature"
no it ******* isn't.

and it was not my fault either.
it was his.
i said no.
what is there not to understand
about the word
"no"

people always tell me the police care
i have never laughed so hard in my life
no they don't
they care about protecting reputations
rather than saving the hurt

we're in a world
a society
where protecting the boys
is more important
than helping the girls

and i am here to tell any victims
whether you are a male or female
that it is not your fault
ever.

what a ****** up thing this world really is.

sometimes i wish i could go back
and tell myself not to go that day
tell myself to stay home
don't use the car
eat at home

sometimes i wish i could go back
and tell myself to not trust him
tell myself he's unprofessional
you can find new friends
in public areas

sometimes i wish i could go back
and warn myself
that something will happen very shortly
if i choose to go out for lunch
instead of stay home

sometimes i wish i could go back
and make different decisions
make a decision to find food at home
and to not trust everyone you meet
because there are some terrible people right under your nose

but i was only eighteen
i had 2 hours to spare
it was lunch
i was hungry
and you offered to bring me out to lunch

i shouldn't have gone
i should have stayed home
i shouldn't have waited in your house for you
i should have seen the signs
and then everything turned upside down

because as i yelled for you to stop
you covered my mouth
and as tears ran down my face
you got angrier
and i got scared

i wish i could go back
and not go out to lunch

i wish i could go back
and not run into that situation

i wish i could go back
because then maybe
just maybe
i wouldn't have been
*****

you act like it didn't happen
like I'm completely fine
and nothing ever ruined me

you don't know what its like
and i don't expect you to

but as a sister
i expect you to care about me
like any sister should

you never care about when I'm sad
you never ask me how I'm doing
or if i need anything

you tell me to get over it
to move on
to start acting like an adult

excuse me

any person
whether they are 9
19
28
or 47
would be affected just the same

we never asked for this to happen
and it should never happen to anyone else

"act like an adult"

i am

i am acting like the true person i am
which is an adult who was ***** by someone she trusted

you don't know what its like
and i don't expect you to

but care
care for me
I'm your younger sister
and you should care for me
like i care for you

I'm always there for you
through everything
thick and thin
but why can't you be there for me
for something i don't know how to deal with

all I'm asking for are
ears
hugs
and an understanding of how i feel

thats all

i just want the person i look up to
to still be in my life