So the worst thing happens, and the world ends quietly,
or not at all.
The worst thing happens, and you don’t even cry.
You wake up in the bed alone,
a phantom hand sliding up inside you
everyone’s talking quietly but they’re talking about you.
You don’t have time to worry about this. You
have your own body to deal with.
And he has no idea what his hands have done.
Sometimes bad things just happen
and no one will ever tell you why.
You look in the mirror and say it twice:
he raped me. he raped me.
No one will believe you. You
don’t even believe you,
and to hear your own shaking voice is not enough.
You need to know why but the only person who has the answer
is a court order away.
he raped me. he raped me
over and over until you believe it. You still don’t believe it.
Your body shouldn’t be afraid of anything at this point,
that’s what you tell yourself,
what’s one more man’s hand inside of you?
and if we’re being honest,
maybe you felt a little less empty
with him inside you. Like he was filling the lonely space.
Like, at least someone wants you.
Maybe there have been nights you’ve wondered
if the only people who’ve loved you are the ones who have taken you by force.
You’re in the bed alone and everyone’s talking quietly about you and you feel
holy. You feel important.
You wake up and you’re alone and you feel the bruises before you see them
but you open your eyes and look anyway,
you’re black and blue and you don’t remember a thing.
You’ve trained yourself so well in the art of forgetting
that the memories you do have
feel like they came out of someone else’s life.
Your bed is a ring box,
no, your bed is a prison, no
your bed is a graveyard of everyone whose body parts have been inside you.
You don’t trust anyone now, least of all yourself.
You feel lonely and sad and out of control and
you don’t quite know what to do about it.
He will never give you a confession, you know this
he will never crawl on his hands and knees through the desert
and beg for your forgiveness but you must give it to him anyway.
He doesn’t think he needs forgiveness, he doesn’t think he did anything wrong, he thinks you were his for the taking. Forgive him anyway.
You have your own body to deal with and you must deal with it by yourself.
You wake up in the bed alone and they’re whispering but it doesn’t matter what they’re talking about,
even though they’re talking about your nakedness, your
dirtiness. You wake up, and you haven’t found the bruises yet,
but something’s wrong
You’re in the bed alone,
and you’re awake, and you’re angry
and you don’t quite know why.
Marina Friesen is an eighteen year-old college student, with a major in psychology and a minor in English, who enjoys writing poetry and prose in her spare time.
Survival of the Fittest by Clinton Ndubuisi