Last summer I had opened the windows over the bed <br />To let in the night's breeze; <br />But air too still drugged me to deep sleep, <br />Smothering me under its dead-weight heat. <br /> <br />I awakened with a heavy body upon me, <br />With the stench of a stranger's hand upon my mouth, <br />And a drunken breath whispering gutturally in my ear: <br />Knife-prodded, it took me a minute longer <br />To awaken to the fact that those demands <br />Were from an unknown intruder <br />Who wouldn't take "no" for an answer <br />Despite how strongly delivered. <br /> <br />With my tongue the terror tried to speak, <br />Though I denied it my full-throated scream. <br />Later with words I appeased it, <br />Coating fear with chewy intellect <br />So that my mind and jaws kept busy <br />While the terror melted, <br />Receded to the back of my throat <br />And enthroned upon a tightly strung larynx, <br />Waited for the right breath to give it life. <br />I can feel it like an itch - <br />An urge to gag, I guard each breath <br />And learn to defeat it with swallows. <br /> <br />Tangled there in sinew, the fear remains <br />Unspoken, but drains me of any complete release. <br />Now with so many words between the act <br />And the stifled reaction, <br />I see how my mind bargained for time to absorb <br />What the body had to receive and accept in the moment. <br />And now with my tongue the terror finally speaks.<br /><br />Lillian Susan Thomas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/aftermath-of-rape-revised/
