is it you – too?

the scratch of skin

blood under nails,

fighting the phantoms

and scratched back in couplets

through flesh onto bone

words inside, words out


is it you, love?

who has me choking on verse

spat with toothpaste and blood

tucked into an unwatched glass

and drunk

until birdsong flows

I rub my skin raw because of the way your desire scarred its way across my unwilling flesh. You were selfish, you are selfish. You are greed in a human body, and I am paying for it. Triggered by another man the same as you, who put his hands around my neck and seemed confused by the concept of a woman not wanting him. Who quickly decided he didn't care either way, and that I could get him off "willingly" by my own method or be forced in ways I would not survive. There is no such thing as yes when no is taken from you, when you have a choice between two evils and you choose the one you think you can live through. When silence answers questions and "I don't want to do this" is ignored because his **** means more than the choices of the person he's trying to force himself on. That is no man, that is a monster dressed as a high school student pretending consent can be forced. Because you made me decide between you ****** me unprotected or getting you off with something else, and I chose the one I thought I could live with, that wouldn't result in an unwanted life growing inside an unwilling body, a body that wasn't willing at conception and who would probably make the choice to end its budding inside of her before having her rapists child. Because you triggered memories of coercion with your threats, because you made it happen again and afterwards had the ******* nerve to get me some ******* grape juice and hand it to me ******* ******* pouting because I "looked like I hated every minute of that" and you "didn't even get to **** so it wasn't even worth it." Because coercing me into ****** activities under threat of unprotected **** apparently wasn't worth it because you didn't get to **** me, because me telling you no and saying I didn't want to until you got so fed up you wrapped your hands around my neck and squeezed annoyed you. Because you put your **** over my free will, over me as a human being. And I get to suffer because of it. You made me a survivor twice over and you smile at me in the hallways like you're somehow still my friend.