Silent

After it happened, I looked back. I always look back; regret encompasses my mind. After it happened I tried to make it right. I opened my mouth to let the sorrow flow out, but nothing came of it. My voice was missing, and the sighs that replaced it seemed far more comforting than any word or gesture. Was there a word for my feelings? My silence says more than any word they ever taught me.
I would have said I was sorry. I would have told them to blame me. I would have told them that I provoked him- I was asking for it.
But he raped me of my innocence, and with him now is my voice. Who am I without my innocence- who am I without words?
The smile is missing, they tell me. There is much more than a smile missing and he will never give any of it back.
When he was here, my voice was gone. I mouthed at the air, help... help... but with no one listening to my screams, I might as well have been silent then. What use is there to speak when no one is listening?
I lost my voice, but I would have said... no....
When he finally let go, my limp heart sank inside the walls I had so naively built around it. I thought they were impervious, but no wall could withstand that penetration, and now enclosed in that octagonal steel is a bloody mush. Incapable of feeling, my veins collapsed, leaving a cold center. All that is left of the warm skin that existed is burning like a fire of never ending flames. Hand prints where he touched- his hand prints burned holes in me, deflating my good nature. Now I wear long sleeves, can anyone else see my burns? The places where contact became restraint? No, but I cover them; I am ashamed. I can't seem to define the line where my giving became his taking.
I would have told them. I would have said I pressured him; I bothered him. I would have, but they sensed my silence, and silenced me further. Don't be ashamed. You had no choice. Even they could speak through their tears.  Tears… where were mine? Not tearing up, not shivering, completely calm, completely composed. They pity me. I pity me.
Moma always told me I was too promiscuous for my own good. She was right. My clothing, I'll never wear a skirt again, they took it anyway. They took everything. As if he hadn't taken enough already, they took hair and samples and my clothes and jewelry, any shred of dignity I had left, gone.
Why did I have to flirt? Why did I feel the need to dance that way? When I left my house, securely in my friend's car, I took off my top, revealing a skimpy mesh thing that I felt sufficed as a shirt. I inched up my skirt. I drank. I knew what I was doing.
They say it's not my fault (but I provoked him). A tease: he shouted in my ear as he moved off of me, that's what you get, you fuckin' tease. And what do I use to counter that? There just aren't words. I would have said no, but he said I deserved it, and what words are there to defend that? He was right… after what I’d done. So I left my voice, I lost it there, somewhere between the dance floor and the grass, somewhere in the screaming and the silence, somewhere in the ignorance, the regret.
Someone once told me that actions speak louder than words. I lost my voice, and because I couldn’t express with words how I felt, I acted on it.
No I didn't lay there in disgrace. How could I? Who would want to lay there in a puddle of victimization? I stood and in doing so I ripped, even further, the clothes that he left on me. And not caring who saw, I walked very complacently to him, he who was standing with his friends, not paying any attention to his surroundings. I raped him of his voice, as he had just raped me of mine.
So when they asked me if I killed him out of self defense, if I killed him on accident, I lost my voice, but I would have said... no....