pain-lies-inside

inkskinned:

“did you hear,”
he says to me,
“about
bill cosby?”

did i hear.
she called me at six a.m.
and said “please come here and take my phone
i keep looking at my facebook and i can’t
stop and i’ve already
thrown up enough.”
i drove at sixty on a thirty road
and held her while she collapsed
into herself; a church building’s
stained glass screams
“he’s gonna get away with it like
what they did to
me”

did i hear.
the first time i had to hold a friend’s hand through
a hospital visit
i was thirteen. our fingers were so thin, then,
pale skin and wrecking balls in place of hearts,
our bodies freezers where we tucked all the wrong things;
despite a taped confession where toads came tumbling out of his mouth
her abuser would get fifteen months of community service
and she would get the grand prize of six years inpatient care
five mental illnesses twelve hospitalizations and
never feeling safe again

did i hear
the restraining order i pulled out on him
didn’t stop him from coming into my house and leaving
little things; sacred tokens so i’d know i was loved by him.
i felt like i was waiting to be kidnapped by fae; slept with the iron
of a machete
under my pillow,
just in case he came calling

“did you hear?”
he says to me
“the defendant said, and I quote, that while
rape might be a terrible thing, just remember, between the two
‘false accusation of sexual assault is worst — it’s an attack on human dignity’.”

did i hear?
of course i did, i’ve been listening
to screams echo around me in the mouths
of trapped women, whose very right to personal safety
to living
is considered less than the potential life a man could lead;

did i hear.
i held her while she cried. she whispered
“they actually came forward. they did what i couldn’t”
she looked up at me.
“so raquel, oh my god,
why is nobody
listening?”