Survivor’s Poem

I came across a blog for SadlyNormal.org, a blog for, by and about Adult survivors of child abuse, and I was very inspired by what she (the blog owner) was doing. I wanted to do my part for the healing, and so I thought I would contribute a poem. This poem is a part of my book, The Swallow Project: A guide to consuming obsession.

Thanks to Anais Nin, I am adding the warning that this poem may trigger you if you are a victim of child abuse or sexual assault. Please keep that in mind.

Check out the Carnival Against Child Abuse hosted by SadlyNormal.org.

It all started as

a game almost twenty years ago

but today, I sit reading an editorial

on the problems of your kind.

Wondering where you are and

How you fair now that you are

registered and all.

My fondness for you began

the moment I scooted my small bones

onto your thick thighs, slobber flying,

I rode your knee with

a grace only bestowed upon giddy children,

growing giddier to feel your happiness beneath me rise

the long bubble an extra hump off of which to bounce.

My shirt clung to my chest, wet with giggles erupted

then I grew breasts never

lessening our hugs or running from your

forward march into my budding sexuality.

All in all, you were still my fav.

But into adulthood, I had an epiphany,

realized you had

somehow come all over me,

staining my habitat for years: my screams

painted across the walls, my blood

a stealth invasion on dove white sheets.

I was hoping that with the fire I set to my memory,

sparked with countless bottles of gin

martinis and powdery lines that I could

forget the smell of old English in that

crevice under your ear or the roses of

Bud on your douche bag tongue when

you stumbled into my heavy chest,

a satchel of fear hanging stiffly like

rigor mortis around my neck.

Locked in by three walls, I repeatedly

stubbed my toe in the filthy tile, winding

my courage around an aching denial, wishing

your hard penis away from my trembling thigh.

And now, I swear I see your face staring at

me from another avuncular 12-point type-faced

memory, written in some other little girl’s

womanly phrase and I sense that perhaps

this Sunday morning, I have had

one too many mimosas but I think I’ll

call your ex-wife just in case.

2006 © Monique Tippins