Photography by Oliver Borzi
Who ever would have thought
that I would be the one trying to
come up with a metaphor to say
What happened
without telling anyone
What happened?
I want to rip out
All of my
Insides;
My hollow and dirty and
ruined and unkind and
apathetic pieces,
And I want to find some divine judge,
Holder of all the Supremest of Courts,
And I want to lay everything at their feet
Broken bone and writhing intestines and
Pulsing searing heat.
All the ways that I was touched,
all the ways that I invited it.
And I want to beg them
"This, right here-
a girl, twice my size,
squirming in my lap and so very heavy
to my five year old, unformed legs
Here-
The boy my age who told me that I
didn't deserve to be alive,
Just to clamp his hand,
Hot as an iron on my leg,
High up,
right where thigh meets pussy
knowing I would be too afraid to say anything in front of our fifth grade teacher
when we were supposed to be reading.
This, here-
The boy who was 17
when I was 14
And wore way too much chapstick
So his lips were always greasy
But never so much as the time
that he pinned my wrists and kissed me hard
and
Here-
The same boy,
Hand heavy and too bony as it grabs me
through my jeans
There is no preliminary thigh touching
Just straight hand to crotch action
like he had the right
And I was too
Embarrassed;
Ashamed;
Humiliated;
Terrified;
to stop him
Didn't want to make a scene and let everyone on the school bus know and
By the time I was able to say "No"
The moment was long gone and he already knew
He could do what he liked to me and
I wouldn't stop him.
But maybe,
if I hadn't let the girl when I was five
Come into my bedroom and
Convince me to take off my clothes for her and
Let her get me dirty,
I'd have been so much stronger
Less afraid;
Less ashamed;
And I would have been able to say
S T O P
Scream it until his ears bleed and
The tendons in his disgusting hands snap
And his bones all turn to dust and
He can never touch anyone else ever again
I won't tell anyone I want to kill him,
But I want to kill him.
Want his body ruined and torn in half,
want him dangling from a cross so everyone knows what he did to me
How do I ask you if
What I think happened,
Happened,
Without giving it a name?
Because the word that clings to the back of my teeth
And pools between my collarbones like dried vomit is
Heavy, and sharp
And I am weak and soft and
It will ruin me, please
The edge is so serrated it
Will cut and tear and shred until
I am full of holes
Skin bloody and peeled,
Maggots burrowed in and maybe
that's the most poetic end we could get
Me; alive, ruined
Me; dead, ruined
Everything on earth must eat