Quick poems
Trigger warning: sexual abuse
What my body remembers before I do
Everyone remembers their first nightmares.
Bears, alligators, monsters under their beds.
Mine waited for me in the closet.
Waited until my eyes were closed, and my chest rose and fell, slowly and deeply.
Crawled in on all fours to me in the dark, over the creaking wooden floors.
Long cold fingers, skinny and pale.
Lingering in places they shouldn’t.
I’d wake up, wondering if I had made it up. Wondering how my shirt had made it so far up while my pants were pulled down to my knees.
A rough sleeper, I guessed.
As homework grew heavier, so did my nights.
Resistance looked like staying awake until 3 am, wearing jeans to bed, and hoping I had bled enough to keep the monster away.
The consequences turned into sleeping past my alarms, slipping grades, and feeling responsible for every friend who asked to stay the night.
Afraid to speak up, shame stitched into every moment, I knew I needed to let go when the bleeding stopped. When the days kept passing and the fear became unbearable.