I tried to report it.
Afterward - I buzzed off my hair
so I would be harder to catch
I burned myself with cigarettes
which never left scars.
Instead, on the bridge of my wrist
there is a pucker of tissue
Where I burned myself on accident
Pulling food out of the oven
for a man.
I walked with an open knife
Up my sleeve
Once, it saved me from
A man in a white pick-up truck
I snarled,
“Stay the Fuck away from me.”
And gathered the knife in my fist.
He backed off immediately
Because he could see
How I could just kill a man.
I didn’t know it then,
But the sexual assault
that left me disabled,
was merely The Middle.
The end came yesterday,
when I realized I wasn’t afraid
all the time, anymore.