LJ idol week 28: walking on eggshells
museums of dying moths
or the stench of something rotten
rush forward,
overwhelming
something happened
it's scrawled in journals
with red marker slashes,
slopped across pages
and the story it paints
spreads like mold,
cancelling the sweet self
who once existed
I remember
in flashes,
in swathes of pandemic
spreading blame like sickness
mom was telling me
something,
speaking in the rhythm of ambulance lights
saying that he
that what he did
was not my fault
that thing,
pus-filled screeches,
stole my body,
took things
that no woman should have to wonder
how they were lost
something happened
and I will not tell you
the whole secret
because that would be too much truth;
I walk on eggshells
so I won't ever have to face the silences within me.
Sleeping Beauty was raped too,
but mothers don't tell their children
that story.
(As if by omitting that unpleasant detail,
they will protect their children from possibility.)
In college, I avoided lectures on date rape,
afraid that they would brand me red
in shades of bruises,
as though people might be able to tell
what had happened to me.
At first, when I opened my mouth
to break the silences that had stretched
too long,
my hands fluttered like trapped birds.
Every time I talked about it,
I expected the ground I walked on to split with grief,
the chair to cave in, the eyes to turn away.
But no one has broken
under the weight of my secrets -
they are still with listening.
Later,
I burned any journal pages with red slashes,
hoping to release the insistent wraiths.
But those letters are still
etched on my insides.
They talk about survivor's guilt,
and I imagine his lack of it.
I imagine how
those twenty-three minutes and sixteen seconds
were only an extended coffee break to him -
they don't paint nightmares on his eyelids,
two a.m. screams on his lips.
They don't matter to him after thirteen years,
probably didn't matter after a single year.
On the other hand, those twenty-three minutes and sixteen seconds
defined me for a decade
until I learned not to care
about how many eggshells I had to crush
to break that deadly silence.
One in six women are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. This poem is dedicated to them in hopes that their unending asskicking survivor strength may continue.
Project Unbreakable is an amazing series of photographs that provides a space for survivors to tell their stories. That remarkable project was the inspiration for this poem.
I am ever grateful to
milk_and_glass &
vorsaga for being my beta readers.
♥
pacing while praying ♥
you are beautiful ♥
digging for buried crap ♥
we should all be narcissists ♥
ˌɪnkənˈsiːvəbl̩ ♥
juicy memories ♥
relax. breathe. bupkis. ♥
a gypsy heart ♥
a month of rain ♥
up is the new down ♥
your words, her silences ♥
ground rules for a hairless housemate ♥
the smell of particleboard in the morning ♥
from an aspiring spinster ♥
scarves & sweaters & shawls ♥
on emotional idiocy ♥
fairytale-maker ♥
betrayal by choice ♥
how to age gracefully ♥
San Francisco's smile ♥
not a needle but a drink ♥
Einstein I am not ♥
searching for ballon ♥
of the earth ♥
becoming Cirsea ♥
hanky panky in the redwoods ♥