Words

Every word that I say
leads my mind to decay
The price I have to pay
to be a victim
taught day after day
what it means to disobey.

Most words I can’t speak
You see, I have PTSD
The kind you get when a man takes not only your body
but your words.

Told I’m deserving of rape but not of the word “no”
But then not of the word “okay”
Or any word that may play away in his malformed brain
that now leaves mine in a haze
forgetting days
or how to say
the words that are in here somewhere but nowhere all the same

Blue skies and Scarlet ties
and everything within here lies
on a bed of words that I can’t find
While you expect me to find forgiveness
for the things you deny.

He says now “speak to me like a human being”
Don’t you get it?
I can’t speak at all
Without a piece of paper in my hand
The words just can’t land on the same runway
that used to say “I love you”
every day
while you played your games
and turned my words into paper air-planes
aimed at me with blades intended to maim
but stained with my name
so I got the blame
and a “you should be grateful I’m willing to stay
that I love you even though you were raped
that I use as an excuse to use you for the same
but you’re the abusive one for ever trying to escape”

I think I earned my right to hate

Earned my right to live life my way
To make the games that I play
To not parlay with a man who lays
on a bed of decay
and promises young girls
that he’s not to blame
He was just led astray
And he’ll force you to stay
“Please! My life is at stake
Wait, why are you so afraid?”

[I wrote most of this in the shower after a bad day at uni. It’s a performance piece/slam poem about (ironically) a trauma-related speech impediment]