His name has become a cuss
which I still cannot speak,
although I preach “fuck” like abstinence.
No, I cannot say his name,
or scream it, not even when he is gnawing
at my feet, swallowing me whole
like a great snake.
I cannot even think his name,
and so it seems so sinister that I once sighed it
into his neck, my lips tired and swollen,
my hair tangled in his fingers.
It seems so strange that I was once in love.
I do not question that it was him.
Perhaps that’s why such the idea now seems
so distant and impossible,
like a dirtless and untouchable star;
the thought of it never so much
as crossing my mind as I lean to expose cleavage
and casually take a knee into my palm
over coffee in a smoky diner.

I am a cripple. It is like he has taken
my arms or my legs, perhaps an eye or two.
And like any cripple,
I’ve adapted, I’ve grown used
to life being spoon fed or walking on my fists
like a monkey. I’ve learned
to see with my hands like a blind man,
and not often do I think of life otherwise.
I’ve learned not to wonder the “ifs,”
screamed louder, kicked harder,
trusted less, known more,
and how much more human I might be.

I’ve learned to think very little
and say nothing of it.
I’ve learned how to live life
with every crevice of myself sewn together,
sewn shut. But I confess
that the feeling never leaves,
the choke and the jab of it,
the hands that held my wrists.
A boy who once tangled his fingers
in my hair and bit my neck
suddenly full of different passion,
suddenly like God or fate,
and suddenly repenting and forgiveness matters,
every sin counts
because you are a small white and dirty rabbit
caught in the bind of a cobra.

But I think very little of that.
And I say very little of that.
More than two years and I still don’t
go a week without crying
and I still don’t admit “victim”
or “survivor.” I don’t admit
his name or his character.
There is very little on my mind
as I lean and take knee to palm
other than the inevitability
of beatings and burns and cuts
and how to pass the time until then
and how to say as little as possible
and think as little as possible
and pretend not to feel.