HER PRISON NOW.

A WOMAN HEARS HER RAPIST IS FREE AGAIN.

She heard they’d let him

Out again, his sentence done,

The prison time over, but

 

That was just the start of it,

The nightmare not undone,

The memories not fled. He’s

 

Done his time, they said, paid

The price, time to move on,

Start life afresh. She finds even

 

The start of day an upward

Struggle, the outer world full

Of terror, the nights filled with

 

Bogeymen and shadows. She

Stares from windows, behind

Curtains, through cracks in

 

Closed shutters. She recalls all

Too well the stolen sex, his

Physical abuse, the hard

 

Words he spoke biting her

Ears, drumming her brain,

Again and again and again.

 

She heard they’d set him free,

All over, time and term, his

Sentence complete, back to

 

The world, back on his feet.

She has double locked her

Doors and windows and drawn

 

Curtains on the world outside;

It’s her prison now, locked inside.