you are 16
and you are in love
with the boy at the back of the room
that has a cheeky smile and
asks you about your day.
it’s nice, isn’t it?
the attention.
satisfied
(you will never ask for more than is willingly given)
you let him take
(he would have taken anyway)
because life is an oath and the oath is obedience
to him,
the duty you are bound to
according to the people on the television.
at first it is your attention, then your time,
then your smile
your comfort
your heart
(it hurts)
(you don’t realise it hurts)
he demands and you don’t say no,
he knows you won’t (can’t) refuse,
looks at your hesitancy as a challenge,
practices male persuasion with eagerness
turns it into a craft by the time he is 18.
you are 19 and he blossoms while you wither.
there is a bite in his bark,
the pinch of his fingers on your arse,
a clenched fist around your hand,
his erection against your back.
but he still smiles,
toothy, sweet, the same as when you were kids,
and you are still in love.
(what does love even mean?)
you are 20 and you learn that
sacred and scared
are made of the same letters
just as a smile and frown are made of the same lips.
your drawers are searched, your thoughts exposed,
your identity desecrated.
he wants you in a box, wants you at 16,
doesn’t like that you are learning to say no and
speak
outside
of the confines he has set.
the oath sits heavy on your tongue
shattered
the night you break his heart.
(but hasn’t he broken yours time and time again?)
you still protect him,
blame yourself,
soothe his ego with a cotton tissue while he cries in your bed
wearing the shoes you’d bought him
while you wear the scars he gave you.
the guilt eats you alive.
(it is the only part of you that is alive)
you are 21 and you are searching for a memory.
like Narcissus and his reflection,
you reach for an image that ripples and
disappears.
you wish you could turn away from it,
let it rest,
but it strikes your heart in the middle of the night,
makes a hole in your chest,
burns the air in your lungs.
(it wasn’t my fault?)
(darling, it wasn’t even love)
you confess to your mother over the phone.
(she invites him for dinner a month later)
you feel betrayed and ruined and he is
ruination -
you are 16
19
21
and you are terrified
but you are kind.
you are blooming,
bursting from the roots of the flower he tried to drown
clinging to the dirt with pink fingernails
and paintbrush calluses.
you are 22
(you survive)
and he -
is nothing.