*Content Warning: The following poem deals with topics such as sexual assault and self harm.

Me, Too

The three of you

take up so much space

in my head.

Though each of you

are gone from my life,

remnants of you remain.

I don’t recall the good moments;

However, what remains

is still part of what has shaped me,

even if the memories are ghostlike

as they haunt me every day.

                                                We are in a stairwell and I can barely walk.

                                                I know that I’ve had too much to drink

                                                and I almost blacked out earlier.

                                                When I ask you what you’re doing,

                                                you don’t respond but merely

                                                pull down my pants and push me up against the wall.

                                                The thought that occurs to me

as the blackness takes me is:

I thought the first time with a man would be special.

I know that these moments

have shaped what I know of love

and what I thought that love could be.

Each of these memories formed scars

that can’t be seen, but I know where they are.

Every time I look in the mirror, I see them

and I wonder if that’s why I sometimes

feel a hatred towards myself so strong

that all I can do is hurt myself, hit

myself, tell myself that I deserved it

when I know that I didn’t.

                                                I had said no all day.

                                                I was too tired, too much in pain,

                                                I wasn’t in the mood.

                                                You got angrier each time I said no,

                                                I remember you pouting at me,

                                                but there was no sadness in your eyes,

                                                only anger that I would think to refuse you.

                                                Eventually, you overpower me and you take

what you wanted in the first place.

I didn’t know that it was possible

to grow scars on top of scars,

pain on top of spiritual lacerations

that had yet to heal, despite my best intentions.

And yet, I still looked for love,

or what I thought was love.

I looked for men that I could fix and make better

so that I wouldn’t have to focus on fixing myself

and find a love to heal from within,

You three were still there,

hiding within the scars you had left.

                                                Even though I was ill, you still wanted sex.

                                                I told you no, that it wasn’t possible,

                                                that I could barely stand, let alone give you head.

                                                And still, you took hold of my skull and pulled it

                                                downward and forced yourself into me.

                                                I kept hoping that it would stop so that

                                                you would let me go and then I

                                                could let go of you and retreat further

                                                into myself.

I look at myself in the mirror and try

to trace the scars that run under my skin.

If I close my eyes almost all the way,

they look like a roadmap.

When I do close my eyes,

I find myself standing on a desert road.

The air is hot and crisp, and it smells lightly

of cedarwood and cloves.

Looking down into my cupped hand,

I see that they are holding a small pile

of ashes. I feel the almost nothingness

against the skin of my palms.

I wish for that nothingness

to be all that is left of you.

Raising my hands,

I let the ashes go, taken along on a breeze

that carries the scent

of letting go.