It took one finger to break into her
one finger to make her feel violated and dirty
two to make her scream
the boys laughed afterward mockingly
why you so upset girl? we didn’t deflower you
you should thank us bitch
or maybe we should just do what we came here to do
they pinned her down, her tights stretched between her legs
like her fractured hymen
she saw the beginning of tears and inside felt
the raw and hurt center cry out
don’t come back don’t ever come back
they were only eleven years old
lying on the floor in the outside toilets
staring at the stars hardly there because of all the smog
her lungs filled with hurt
they were her friends
until they became rabid dogs
she didn’t know what switched the switch or why
they felt she was there to poke and prod
they were too small and she was too small and everything about it
was premature
which meant
waiting until it happened again
she wasn’t a victim but some things reoccur
as if on some awful cycle
sometimes she’d shudder thinking about
their little hard cocks
trying to pry their way in
the way it felt to be hurt like that
with unwashed fingers scrabbling and opening
the parts of her nobody should
she could visualize the cement beneath her
the smell of urinals and their unwashed genitals
if they had known enough to put them in her mouth
they would have
thankful for small mercies she knew
kids these days wouldn’t be so innocent
they see porn before they know how to spell
pornography
what ideas they must get and how
many bad things go on behind closed doors
or even ones held shut by little boys
seeking to immitate older brothers
she would have impaled them with
her rage if she wasn’t so ashamed
so she said absolutely nothing to anyone
least of all the teachers who would have
called her a slut who asked for it
even at eleven years old.
***
When she reached fourteen
the Golem returned
held her down, muffled her mouth
stuck it in like a needle threading through skin
her scream pierced every limb
and nobody heard
nobody wondered why
she wasn’t home for dinner
her plate was left in the fridge
she was emptied of the last piece
of her soul
left gasping where her privacy had been
legs spread and men hustling in
one after the other took their turn
after all wasn’t it a party? Make it count!
her face closed off and remote like she was dead
some of them were small and bony
their penises hardly large enough to feel
between the soreness and the swelling
others bore into her like a metalic truck
thrusting her back onto her thin tail bone
hands around her neck
fingers pinching her nipples and breasts
they filled her with a disgusting smell
she was never going to be whole again
or clean
and when it was over, it had just begun
face after face, cock after cock
a tape on repeat of her worst nightmare
they came, they came and they went
the only evidence there staining the bed
and her rubbery legs unable to flee
tied and sodomized like a string of beads
she flew out of her crumpled body
a bird of wing and feather only
she saw someone she almost recognized
torn and ribboned and splayed
a garish doll, a parody, a destroyed shape
someone she was no longer
as she lifted, higher and higher, beyond that point
no pain anymore just the thick blush of shame
hidden in plumage
she felt nothing but
a choking word on her tongue
WRONG
WRONG
WRONG
her child’s form
her hardly grown self
the silence of nothing
then it did not matter
what time she wasn’t coming home
all the world was quiet now
movement had stilled
the door was shut
nobody knocked
nobody unbuttoned their pants
and sank to their knees
lifting her up for one more final
free fuck
as if she were no more than a hole
not a human
not a worthy soul
immitation the greatest form of flattery
is not
she was cold now to the touch
her spirit somewhere in the stars
it took one finger to break into her
and a record set on repeat playing
over and over until it scratched
and could not play
anymore
the song of rape.
For all the survivors whose voices are quashed.