Sacrifice
As I laid, not even just amongst your dirty sheets
as I spread open like a flower bud in spring,
but instead on the rough fabric of folded down car seats
your hazel green eyes gleamed with hunger
as if I was a human sacrifice to your lust
as you licked your lips ready for your next meal.
I squeezed my eyes shut as my muscles tensed
I never said no, but I also never said yes.
You took my silence for permission
and ignored the oceans that leaked from my eyes,
as the thickness of the darkness engulfed my cries.
My psychologist has told me that the choppy memories
and flickers of pain is my attempt to block out the trauma
that you left behind in the form of a human washcloth,
used and disposed of.
But I know you didn’t think you did anything wrong
and I know you say you have changed
but after you, the salty sting reminder that these wounds never leave
comes in the form of tears and tremors that wrack my body
as soon as he touches me where I know your hands have been.
However I feel as though the past repeats itself,
as I eventually find those hungry eyes,
swimming with lust, in each person my heart opens to.
I have since learnt to say no,
even to those I love,
even to their excuses and ploys
as they attempt to squeeze their hands down the waistband of my jeans,
just as you did,
and as they rush to rip away the fabric that covers my flesh.
You see, my body is a disposed of garment,
my anxieties spilled out like unravelled seams and loose buttons
and I had hoped that each and every one of those boys
were a needle and thread,
for I hoped their love could sew back the pieces of me
that had torn a part in the process.
But they have merely drawn blood from my fingertip,
from the prick of their needles
the scarlet rich against my ivory flesh…
I guess I forgot that sewing was the women’s job.
- atri poetry
