the hardest thing
has never been
that I was raped

or even that it happened
on a grassy lawn
where presumably anyone
could've and may have seen

the act itself was
not traumatic
so much as confusing

I had said no
that's what you're
supposed to do
right?

Only no one says
what to do
when no doesn't
work
quite the way it should.

Do they?

He couldn't understand
why I refused to ever
speak to him again
avoided him

he had been my boyfriend.

It took me a couple
years to recognize
this as rape

and then

no one could understand
why I wanted to talk
about it

So I don't.

I laugh
as I tell people
these days
reassure them really
that they won't reach
my limits, aren't likely to

After twenty years
of my family refusing
to listen to my nos
why should that
one boy
have been any different?

Eventually, instead
I learned to say
yes
to what I do want
and try to fill my
life with that.

(But I still
wonder, sometimes
what it is exactly
you're supposed
to do
when no doesn't work.)

11/26/2007

Posted on 11/26/2007
Copyright © 2024 Gira Bryant