1. They turned you into a killer

But then you flashed your fangs.

Spit out blood.

Came for all who did you wrong.

And suddenly they were lighting torches.

And suddenly they were bolting their doors.

And suddenly they hated what they couldn't control.

They tried to force you to go soft, to go delicate, to go small.

And suddenly they were dead.

2. You keep saying you love it when it rains.

Like you don’t remember that every time there is a storm we lose hope.

Every time there is a storm we drown.

3. You've never cared for autumn but now you can bury yourself in the leaves and blame the season for how you change.

4. Life is going to move regardless of if you are keeping up with it.

5.They’ll call me Icarus when I die.

Even after all of this I only deserve the hand me down name of a man.

Too prideful and full of freedom to know when he would burn.

Maybe that’s the insult: that we’re not much different.

And maybe that’s the insult: people remember the first, but never the second

6. They praise you: the wicked harvest.

The girl who grew and refused to give any of it away.

They say, selfish girl, foolish girl.

Your body is bountiful, enough for all.

And you know, that there would then not be

Enough for you.

7. Take this punishment. Take this punishment. You were quiet then and you can be quiet now and you can find fault in yourself. God dammit it’s so easy. Try to cauterize your wounds with the phrase ‘it wasn’t your fault’ breathe it in, steep it in your tea, eat it for breakfast. Try to wrap the four simple words around your heavy tongue. It doesn’t fucking matter. You will never believe this. What did you do in a past life to be living like this, with a trail of tragedy starting with when they tore you from your mother’s stomach and you both bled. That old place you grew up is a cemetery, and you, dead or alive, are stuck there like a ghost. Tell them you are strong, that you spit in the face of men sized like mountains because you are immeasurable.

Tell them you’ve got it all figured out now.

Tell them the whole thing is a joke.

8. Here he says he loves me, carves our names into the old oak tree at school, screams it to the stars, tries to kiss me in that boyish way they told him was courageous and told me was magnificent.

When I say no I hear it like waves crashing against rocks. He hears.

Nothing.

Here, he says he loves me, is still charming, he is taught to never give up on what he wants the other girls are taught to believe I am lucky. I see his dimpled smile and wonder why the panic in my stomach won’t settle.

Here, he says he loves me, waits at my locker like a puppy dog, and my mother always took in strays when I was younger, but here is where I don’t want this, or him, and I think of the word no like a grenade that just won’t detonate. I think of him as the heartbroken evidence. I think of myself liking that I don’t imagine feeling guilty about it. He hears.

Nothing.

Here, he says he loves me, and that my eyes are the sky, hair the color of honey, lips sweeter than wine, and I begin to grow monstrous. I want to scream. I am not the sky; I am the roaring sea; I am not honey, I am poison. I am not wine, I am blood.

I say no.

His face is not the beautiful angel my mom saw in my future.

Hands, around my throat, up my skirt, not the boy the girls at school dream about.

Here is where I become the grenade, the detonation, and the aftermath.

Here is where I am heard, and then:

never heard again.

9. I indulge.

I do the opposite of what I taught myself.

I go soft.

He wanders long and nimble fingers across my bare rib cage, taking inventory of pale flesh he has seen through a screen but never touched.

Every time I attempt to move my eyes past his mole dotted neck I draw a blank, like a gun misfiring, and suddenly I am not in his room, on his bed sheets.

I am lost at sea.

His tongue traces patterns at the freckles under my chin.

I feel the room filling with water. The smell of salt.

He is pulling back, hands shushing over my sides like he thinks it will comfort.

I can’t see his face I can't see his face I can't see his face.

When I open my mouth I am drowning.

He is the ocean.

And this is not a metaphor.

10. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking this is anything but what it is. A boy who finds a place to harbor self doubt, hides fragile masculinity in the bones of a girl who never knew better. This scenario where ‘yes’ is green. And ‘no’ is I didn’t see the red light. A dystopian novel where we teach young women to be givers, and let our young men be guiltless robbers. I see red stained thighs and eyes where light can no longer get through and from her lips comes the stockholm syndrome practiced mantra of any victim. We call this the ‘but he still loves me’ ‘he didn’t mean it’ ‘this was the first time’ alibi.