Crumbs

The carpet sits beneath me, a dirt painting on the ground
another pretty girl pants under your silhouette
you wanted a cracked water main, but I am a blood fountain
how do you discipline yourself?
my body, an afternoon performance

"I do love you, but I'm not in love with you."

Only some dirt gets to be mud - wouldn't it feel good to be stepped on?
When he is bored, all things become an entrance
I was a tender object living in a home you'll never invite me to
Turn screams into moans; call it healing

Looking up from a pair of thighs, I wake up like a lap dog
When I ask how he wants me, he does not answer
What a privilege to be bored rather than bound
See no victim, only pleasure seeker

Do not stop until you have frightened everyone
until you can hold a thorn without bleeding
until you hide panic into laughter
until this intersection of trauma and pleasure
means nothing to you

Men, and other Perpetrators of "Unbelievable" Stories

It is a Saturday night and my phone chirps with all the wrong suitors. One time a man used the same breath to recommend I stop being such a "cunt" and to call me "fat." I try to remember Rachel's words, how "fat" is a thing we all have, and not an insult. In her cropped slacks that show off her skinny ankles I know, despite her desperate desire, that she too does not believe her words. How can something be so unbelievable, yet so predictable?

A young man I had a Spanish class with many years ago knocks on my parent's front door, asking if they need any painting. My father answers and despite the fact that I, mere minutes ago, explained why I had come home for the weekend, that I am scared, that I am hiding, the front door swings open. Within seconds, he eagerly shares my name, my school. My thighs bruised, still healing from an all too real panic, my terror stands juxtaposed next to my schizophrenic brother's paranoia, "It's happening. She is just as delusional."

I can not remember when I first learned that men can not handle my honesty. Perhaps, it was when I was fourteen, locked in a purple girlhood, and forced to speak my truth: a truth that would trigger years of emotional abandonment. When I told my father I was raped, he used it as a bargaining piece to escape speeding tickets, or avoid having to pay for my college's required meal plan. To an officer, "Why don't you ask [detective] Kevin about me," or years later, in a car headed to my primary care physician, "Girls who are raped often have difficulty swallowing." Squeezing my arm, he sent me out of the car, encouraging me to lie. "Just say that you have an eating disorder. Go in there and lie like hell." Like the sexual assault survivors whose horror complicates swallowing, my father could only stomach the reality of my truth disguised in dishonesty. When he said they will not believe me, what I heard was I don't believe you.

Learning of my sexual abuse made my parents afraid of me. Summer of 2011 and my father sits on a under-stuffed green chair. Inspired by my brother, who had jumped out of his window in a fit of psychosis days prior, he lists off the worst things that have ever happened to him. When my childhood rape does not make the list I spend the next fifteen months with a needle in my arm.

There is snow on the ground when I kiss a Navy boy on the mouth. This pleases me. Weeks later, I, an in attempt to be upfront, admit that I am into someone else. "I don't want to hold you back," I say. My honesty, again, renders me "crazy."

At 15, my high school English teacher asks, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Trusted."