She snuck out after dark that night,
Against her father’s wishes.
She’d always been a good girl,
Never done anything like that before.
But he was a spoken word poet,
A shaggy haired dream.
A college boy
With a quick wit, kind eyes
And an easy way about him.
Her stomach was full of butterflies.
She imaged being in a poem,
In His poem;
Not her name, necessarily,
but her Essence.
And she wore
what used to be
Her favorite black skirt
To their date,
under the moonlight,
Like in a poem.
But Mr. Dream Poet,
Mr. Goddamn Kind Eyes,
He brought her Death,
Instead of a lyrical bouquet.
It sounds ridiculous,
But a love song was playing,
She remembers the melody.
Echoing through tinny speakers
With the treble way too high
And the words too strange to make much sense.
She prayed and pleaded;
First, with him,
And then to a god that didn’t give a shit,
Leaking pointless tears
On his vice grip around her neck,
Until he was done taking whatever he wanted.
He drove her back,
Saying nothing.
She remembered that awful silence,
Her eyes puffy and swollen,
Barely able to catch her breath,
Waiting for red lights to turn green.
She kept his secret
Through the shame
Through the terror
Through her friends reciting Shakespeare
and Jokingly calling her The Muse
Through the brokenness of
Not being able to trust anyone
Not feeling worthy of love
Not understanding why.
She kept his secret,
Playing coy and elusive,
Smiling through the pain
as it rotted her from the inside out.
From her friends,
From her lovers,
From her Father
From Everyone.
Because she knows
It’s nothing special.
To be forced
Hurt
Used
Emptied into;
And then dropped from the heavens
To land in a dull pile
With Monday’s trash collection
Alongside a million other fairytales,
just like hers:
Broken,
Violated,
Discarded..
Without a poem,
Without a choice,
Without happily ever afters.
Journal Entry - 12/22/18
