a flick of the wrist,

and the water turns on

like the electrons fired on in his head

or at least the idiot ones did

valves of hot water creak and groan somewhere down in the

depressions of the dirt where the pipes are

buried with my dignity

somewhere through the fog in my head

i get in turn the dial to cold or maybe denial

i can’t really tell the difference anymore

my shirt is crumpled on the dirty tile floor

the way he probably wanted it in his head,

crumpled in the corner

like i was crumpled

in the corner against

that blue particle board wall,

while he said all the things that he would do to me

i shake the thought off

like how he wanted to shake my clothes off me

and how my hands shake

as i sit on the floor of the shower

in fetal position

suction cups from bath mats pop like the snap

of knuckles preparing for a fight

as i curl in the corner of the headboard-shower door

i was told i looked provocative in my t-shirt and jeans

i was told i had it coming

and that boys will be boys

i tell them i know five police officers

and none of them could tell me what i wanted

no needed to hear

that’s why i kept quiet for five months

because no one told me the difference

no one said

the safe word

the safe world of

no

no

no excuses for your actions

if boys will be boys then why

can’t girls be girls and fight back

defend ourselves for once

because we are human too

my coma of his misogyny is broken by a

scream

my scream

it sounds strange being drowned out

in the tears from the sky

oh wait that’s just the showerhead

drowning my screams

drowning

drowning

i am drowning in the thoughts

of what could’ve happened

i take my nails and scrub and scratch

tear my skin to pieces with one hand

tear my hair out w\th the other

but no matter how hard i pull

i can’t rid my wrist of the

scars from the pen

i had in my hand today while

i filed a police report in the

lunch detention room

lunch is foreign

what is lunch

a five letter word with five hundred million calories stuffed in

between the cracks there’s a cracking knock

on the bathroom door

it’s someone i can’t hear telling me to

get out

like i told him to get out of my face but all i got

were letters from the court and now,

now i know his middle name.

now i know his lawyer’s name

now i know that i wasn’t alone

but i felt alone

i feel alone  

i am alone as i sit against the wall on the dirty tile floor in my robe,

crumpled dreams - shirt, beside me

steamy tears run down the mirror - my face

as i sit, questioning why i took that class

why i fought

why i thought it would be okay

and why i believed my glassy-eyed lies of

“you’ll be fine.”