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Alex Berthelot Feb 2017
i was only 15 when i met you but
i was armed with a heart full of optimism,
and a mind craving a future of adventure.  
i saw the good in everyone i met,
including you.

i still remember spending lunch break in the
music room playing piano as you sat on the
bench next to me and watched my
fingers glide over the keys.

or how we sat next to each other in history
class and our teacher had to separate us  
because we couldn’t stop giggling over the
stupidest ****, day after day.

or how late one night we snuck into the garage
where all the golf carts were stored at this really
fancy country club and we just sat in one and talked.
one minute i was laughing and the next you were
kissing me and i remember thinking how right
everything felt in that moment.

i still don’t understand how the same person i
shared so many laughs with could be the same
person that grew so angry after i pushed her off of me.

who disregarded my pleas for her to stop.

“you don’t have to do this.”
“i am so sorry, i didn’t mean to make you angry”.

i am sorry,
i am sorry,
i am so so

s o r r y.

you didn’t stop
and i was forever changed.

after that night, i kept finding myself spending lunch
break hiding behind the couch in my empty math
classroom so i didn’t have to muster up the energy to
fake a smile and make small talk with anyone anymore.

i kept catching my heart sink in the middle
of laughing with my friends, none of it felt
real anymore and i felt so alone no matter
how many people i was surrounded with.

everyone was starting to notice and i
found myself answering the same
dreadful question day after day.

“are you okay?” they would ask.
“i’m just tired” was the standard reply.

i was growing increasingly angry as the
question kept coming and my answers
were becoming more sarcastic by the day.

every time i heard those words “are you okay”
i felt like i was being punched right in the gut,
of course i wasn’t okay, but i didn’t know why.
so one day i just stopped answering.
everyone that asked was met with silence.

i didn’t understand why i had grown so cold and tired
because you conditioned me into thinking that what
you did wasn’t bad and that i was over reacting.
soon i started questioning if i even remembered
that night right.

i didn’t understand why i was missing class after
class because i was too busy having panic attacks.

or why i couldn’t make eye contact
with you in the hallways anymore.

or why i prayed night after night to a higher power that
i doubted even existed because every morning i still
woke up when i prayed so hard that i would not.

i didn’t know why my heart was hurting but it was,
and there were no words, no matter how i phrased them,
that were able to convey the pain that i felt in my chest.

i eventually stopped trying to piece the right words together
because no matter how they came out, i couldn’t
quite capture the hopelessness or the emptiness,
or the desperation of needing someone to hug
me and tell me over and over how
this was not my fault no matter
how much i believed it was.

i thought maybe if i took the blade to my skin then
someone would recognize how bad i had been hurt.
but no one really seemed to think there was a problem.

but i was still sad,
so i figured that maybe the problem was me.

i became addicted to punishing myself for what you did.
blaming myself for not having seen this coming and  
for not having fought against you little harder that night
despite the paralyzing fear i felt.

the whole time i thought that
maybe if i understood why my heart was
hurting so much that i could find a way to fix it
and things would be a little easier.

flash forward to now,
i understand the reason behind the pain and
though i am no longer hurting myself to express it,
it’s hard to see my scars fading when the pain is not.

the paralyzing fear from that night
has followed me everywhere since
and it will follow me everywhere i go.
Cassidy Jackson Feb 2017
your warm breath against
my skin
your fingers tracing my ******* roughly

one of your hands move
lower
intruding my space

this is not right
i do not want you here
i do not want you in my body

i say nothing
hoping you would read my mind
take a hint from my pleading eyes

my insides curl
as you take away my innocence

i am no longer myself
who i am...
is you
this is a very personal poem with words i just needed to get off my chest. i was ***** a little over a month ago and it changed me. i am no longer who i used to be. i am broken and used up. i wish i could go back in time and take back my moving steps towards his car
Holly Owen Feb 2017
Disgusting
the way your hands feel down my back
as if they are made of sand paper,
giving me a rash that just won't go away
i feel hopeless
each scream i make goes unheard
each movement i make only makes you tighten your grip
until i can no longer breath and everything goes blurry

Disgusting
even after it's over
i still feel your tight grip around my arms
invisible hands linger and no matter how many times i shower
i cannot wash this unclean feeling from my body
i'm trapped inside a shell
thats covered in the traumatic memory of you

Disgusting
even in my dreams
you lurk around every corner
turning the moments that once made me happy
into something sinister and more horrific
i don't when ill be able to breath again without feeling so
*Disgusting
t Feb 2017
the memory is foggy, but it’s there
I used to think I had dreamt it;
his hands on my shaking body, his breath that smelled of alcohol
the images were so distant that they almost felt unreal

my therapist used to ask me if I was sure it really happened
and to be fair, I wasn’t
but why would a ten year old imagine something so twisted?
and why would the thought of my own dreams make my stomach sick?

I spent years wondering what really happened
and I finally know it was real
because whenever I replay the events I remember
I am back
I can feel the cold air on my skin and the tenseness in my muscles
his voice telling me to come closer
his hands on my shaking body, his breath that smells of alcohol
my dreams have never made me feel this way
Amanda Sharpley Jan 2017
I pray that one day my body
will have forgotten your touch.
Along with the jarring hum
of a foreign object, searching
for a home in a locked building.
Through all your niceties
I see the devil that you
hide

I have felt it
inside of
me

moving to a beat
beyond my range
of hearing

sweat soaked skin
that crawled on
top of me

tattooed with Japanese
as if you were
a native

of any land
but fear
t Jan 2017
I am fifteen years old
he’s been touching me like this for years
but I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever be used to it
every time the door opens, my room starts to spin like a carousel
the possibility of his hands on my waist
again
will always make my stomach sick
he went from a brother to a predator so slowly
that I almost didn’t notice
instead, I noticed my own deterioration
I blamed myself
he’ll never know that he ruined me

I am twelve years old
a boy sitting across from me on my school bus
with hair the color of the sun
decides to move next to me
he presses his sweaty body against mine
my face is against the window
I can’t breathe
his lips move to my ear
his breath surrounds me and suffocates me
it smells like death and fear
I would cringe away
but I have nowhere to go

I am ten years old
despite the warmth of my parents’ room, I am shivering like crazy
he pulls me under his warm comforter
but I am far from comfort
his breath smells of alcohol as he whispers “don’t worry”
“I’m not going to touch you”
yet my heart has not slowed
and my shivering has not stopped
his lips press to mine and they taste like poison
his hands move my own across his large body
my head is spinning
I need to get out of here

I am eight years old
we are watching tv on the couch together
all my other brothers have gone to bed
but we were always the night owls of the family
his hands snake up my legs
they burn like flames
I push them away
as he tries to push them under my shorts
but he never gives up
no matter how many times I tell him no
even after years
of pushing him away

I am five years old
the boy who lives next door wants to play
together
we go into the bushes behind his house
my heart races with excitement
but
when he asks me to show him what’s under my skirt
it drops with fear
I want to cry
he tells me that if I say no he’ll send me home
we will never play together again
I run home in tears

I am two years old
as my mother is treating my diaper rash
she tells me to never let anyone else
see what’s under my nightgown
I am confused
I could never see how that could become an issue
or a challenge
little did I know that
by being a girl
I had been set up for a lifetime of danger
I'm sorry this is kinda emo
V Anne Dec 2016
I want to forgive you
to have an open heart
and a spirit of generosity.

But that feels nearly impossible.

How can I forgive you
for Facebook Messages
that left me shaking?

How can I forgive you
for denying the assault
and hanging up the phone?

I’ve never felt more grief.
I’m grieving.
I’m in pain.

And it’s hard to forgive
when I still cannot
forget.
I cried for you
a flash of silver
between my teeth
lips, scarlet and drip-
ing

at seventeen I knew
the weight of you,
each hair on your arms
as you pressed my back
into the stained carpet

the Japanese tattoo
that, tracing the thick
black lines with my eyes

a quick glimpse of my
grandfather, mixing bread
with milk and whiskey

flowers that grew, evergreen
in the garden where
he'd chase me

laughter ringing through the air
cheesecloth blue dresses
and black, buckled shoes

you eat me, heart first
then each sense in turn.
I welcome the loss of
them all.

The touch of your
nails in my thighs. The
taste of blood as your
rotted mouth envelopes
my own. The sound
of flesh beating flesh.
The sight of sweat beads
resting on your brow. The
smell of ***** seeping
through skin.

In a moment
I am no longer
a girl

but a woman eating
the words off my clothes, smarting, sinister ****

a ***** kitchen floor
is waiting. The cool relief
of the tiles on my
burning skin

a woman,
no longer whole
yet still
alive
We are born without teeth
yet, instinctively bite
peach lips forming circles
around fingers,

I remember the first bite,
he was pale and wore dusty
jeans. He came into my
bedroom, offering wine
he had laced with crushed
pills, unknowing that
to me his skin was laced
with ecstasy

the numbers mount up
in the same way they
fade, days disappearing
when a calendar turns,

memories are meant to
etch themselves into
our bones, but I  realised
that it was blood, blood
that preserved our former
selves, each drop a day,
each mouthful a moment,

they think I bite out of
spite, out of fury and
rage

but I am merely a collector
of moments that do not
belong to me, a predator
of the passage of time

I am gluttonous, I admit
but feeding on men that
prey on women does not
seem like greed,

I remember....
the night I was bitten.
He was tall and tattooed,
I liked his shoes,

***** flowing like water,
clear, crystal water
purifying (I thought)
until it hit my brain
paralysing all thought
and then...

Hell moved inside me,
a self-gratifying demon,
inked with a dragon,
as gunless as I
was Godless

I bite these men now,
these haters of women,
who **** and drink and dare
to slip a finger in,

I am reflection -
less and yet I know
what a mirror would show
about me,

the exit left of the battered
woman, who dared to change
her set, her scenery, her script

no, I am not ashamed of the
blood I take, but I am not
an animal who kills
for sport, for fun, for food

I am vengeful, I am every woman
sick of settling for less,
I am that woman you pitied
then despised,

I am that ******* a cold
bedroom floor, reborn

with fangs
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