One out of every six.

I almost threw up
nerves gripped around my throat for
my own silent screams.

Consent

I gift my heart permission to feel. 
          my brain permission to analyze. 
                    my body permission to crave. 

because, what does consent look like
without practicing how "no" feels 
on the depths of my emotions 
the electricity running through me 
and the tips of my fingertips grazing
the delicate wetness of my inner folds

it's the way he pinned me down
a degree at a time until I boiled
the confusion the next morning 
the denial the following year 
the shame recorded in my deposition

it's the way she manipulated me
into questioning the voices in my head
both the one informing me I am worthy 
and the louder one that remind me 
of all the ways I am never enough

this all feels unfinished, like the 
lesson is always just out of my reach
I'm a pattern trapped in a wash and fold
cast away when I'm too dirty to be held close 
kept at a careful distance when my delicates
are too clean to be anything but preserved

if I can't say yes to myself, to my 
cravings and wantings and flaws 
how will I ever be ready to say no. 

Alert

I watch shadows while
I walk, willing energy 
into a forcefield. 

The Shame Sticks to Your Bones

The art of breathing
escaped my lungs, I forgot
I knew how to scream.

Midnight Musings

My trauma is wrapped around me, 

soft as mink and barbed with quills 
I grew when he left, when he cheated, 
when he violated the curves of my body.
It's hard to remain soft in a world this cruel. 

Sculptors of emotional and intimate clay,
they molded a warrior, a survivor, a woman
who sometimes recoils, trapped in the scream. 
My nerve endings are free and bare and yours?
It's hard to remain soft in a world this cruel. 

Crisscrossing psychological and physical paths,
the warmth of your hands exploring my body
for longer than an age, shorter than a period...
it's reminiscent of fires even older than time. 
It's hard to remain soft in a world this cruel.

Words pirouette in my brain and tumble out, 
tongue bouncing and twisting forward, backward.
If you're patient, I'll be courageous and grant you
my trust because who doesn't like oxytocin?
It's hard to remain soft in a world this cruel.

It's just, I have a feeling you know this, but,
it's hard to remain soft in a world this cruel. 

Mar-i-on-ette

The no on the tip of my tongue

Trembled there for what felt like
seconds, minutes, hours, days.
A broken record, a strategy of
I just need to make do until the
sun rises and I can slink into the day. 
When they propose fight or flight, 
they never quite reference 
the third option of survival. 

As much as you have convinced
yourself that we are the same, 
that we tumbled into a category
explaining the nature of our actions,
our nurture was, is fundamentally unique.
Because when I said no, when I said no 
you countered with a yes that
was insistent and terrifying and
left little room for interpretation.

There is a recurring dream that
haunts my sleep from time to time.
I am being stalked by a lion, it has
the clear intentions of harming me.
I did not realize that the Sandman
could drift into my reality hiding
behind a lavish dinner invitation.