Flashbacks

She was older
as they (almost) always are.
The day before
I’d thought her funny
and yeah,
I noticed
the way she filled her sports bra
and her blush-pink lips
just right for kissing.
So that night I left the party
to camp on the beach
with her.

I think if we’d been under the open sky
maybe it would have been okay:
the wind on my skin and the sound of surf.
But the tent was nightmare-dark
her breathing heavy
her hair black and coarse beneath my hands
and she seemed so much larger
than my suddenly
blown-glass body.

It always goes back to childhood
when his hair was black and coarse
and scored red curlicues
everywhere we touched.
His weight
the weight of a terrible world
and a future
I would never have.

The problem
is that glass is voiceless
and when it shatters
well, not even a whimper echoes;
no hope in hell
of a “please stop.”

I tend to think that she
didn’t
hurt me that night
and what it was
instead
is another trophy for a man from 20 years ago
who even in his absence
continues to rape me.

Written by Annie Jadin, speakingvoiceless.wordpress.com.