a conversation about hitting

when she talks about the past,

she does so with a numbness

that has been developed over

years of trying to push it behind

her---these are the mechanisms

of endurance that had been taught

during years of therapy &

she is suspicious about them having

done a bit of good, because

when she is alone & closes her

eyes, she can still remember

the events that have torn apart her

psyche &

in the most unfortunate moments,

she can still make out the face.

 

how many men have been sitting with

a new acquaintance & the talking,

be it flirtatious or otherwise,

seems to take a serious turn quickly &

suddenly, so unexpected, she lets

him in on what has happened to her in

the past, no matter how recent that past is?

&

she confides, she tells the stories like

she was reading them from a book,

showing almost nothing left, until the

man reacts & then she might very well

try & blame herself for where, when &

how the abuse came to be---

but there are the statistics &

even if one is so misogynistic

as to believe that all the women polled are

in fact lying,

such colors are shown quickly &

quite often they are exhibited on the side of

the molester, the rapist or the abuser, be him

of the physical or the psychological.

 

a savage truth exists,

for when she confides, she can never be sure,

even if all her senses tell her that this one is

ok,

she has the torture of the past to remind her &

so there are always walls, always barbed wire

fences bunched up &

a lack of trust that could outweigh

anyone’s.

 

to think that there are still men living,

who have never had a conversation about

hitting with a woman who has been tormented

& violated,

to think that there are men alive who ignore the

statistics, think they are all lies or just

don’t give a s**t,

makes one wonder if this really is the

21^st century.