Tag: Sexual assault

I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
Were you expecting me to say
Something more fitting,
More form fitting,
Something more pretty?
Or would you rather I said
I was wearing a shirt and tie so
You can fetishize my school uniform
To try and justify his actions
And make the victim him and not me?

Were you hoping I would say
I was wearing nothing but
My sexuality on my sleeve
And leggings so you could say
“They were practically begging”
And then pin the blame on me?
Then go on to say that I was
“Preying on his fragile masculinity”
Twisting the situation and implying
That the problem was me?

Because the truth is
I wasn’t wearing anything that would
Let you dress consent as a foregone privilege
Instead of a basic right.
And the only reason his
Arms and ego are bruised is because
I tried to fight back and tried not to
Not let it happen but I was
Too frightened and pinned down
With brute force and fear.

I still feel his hand
Over my mouth,
Forcing my screams
To back down my throat.
I am forced to wear scars
Carved by his nails and I’m
Stained with bruises that
No shower can wash away and
No knife or razor can cut out.
And I’ve tried.

No noose or antidepressant
Can change the way that
I have been changed.
And if you think,
If you believe,
That I would ask for this,
For my life to be hollowed out,
For my body to be mutilated to the point
I don’t recognise my reflection,
Then you are just as much to blame as him.

I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt,
Now they’re stained, tattered and torn
And strewn amongst the shreds of
My dignity and innocence and
Shards of shattered dreams that
Have given way to nightmares that
Don’t let me sleep
And broken-record memories
That play over and over and over,
That remind me the victim was me.