Date rape is a serious issue, one about which I feel passionately. Tell is written for every young woman – and young man – who has ever been victimized by this primal, ugly, aggressive criminal act forced upon her or him without consent. Too often at parties, alcohol flows, drugs abound, and a disturbingly consequence-free atmosphere leads to tragedy.
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section at the end of the poem.
Tell
It’s 3:00 am, and your eyes search the ceiling, looking for answers. Outside the world is sleeping, you know he is sleeping.
Pause, replay.
What if it had been different, here when he first
Pause, replay.
If only you hadn’t gone that day
Pause, replay.
No matter, it always comes out the same. You cannot change the ending.
The face in your mirror does not smile anymore. Shards of splintered confidence cut from the inside, every time you try.
You cannot hide from this, no matter how fast you run.
Pause, replay.
It wasn’t really rape because
Don’t make a scene, it was nothing, you were drunk, stuff happens. Toss it off, like a jello shot, like a bump in the road. Maybe it wasn’t even rape.
Twist it, turn it, try to make it different. Still, it always comes out the same.
Pause, replay.
Good girls, quiet polite girls, biddable girls do as they are told. They do not scream inside and vomit their lunch.
You’re not OK, you know you know it.
This is your chance. Don’t blow it.
Tell.
It sounds impossible, but
Tell.
Find your most trusted, close your eyes if you must, and let it go, let it go, the tears, the sadness, the rage. Let it go.
Tell.
Strong hands will reach up to catch you, you will not fall.
You are one of many, so so many, sisters and yes brothers, too.
You are not
paralyzed, victimid
You are not
blighted, split and ruined
You are not
spoiled goods
You are not
anything other than who you were before –
but you have been forged unwilling in this fire, blue-white strong as tungsten steel, and
you will rise up, whole in the truth that rolls like God’s thunder, and
you will
raise your voice,
you will
speak his name, and
you will
Tell.
