Not The Only One

You are not the only one
to have your heart shredded along with your clothes,
to have your dignity
torn from your body,
to have been splayed open, fileted,
spread and shattered.
You are not the only one
to have been forced
as you flail panicked
unable to get away,
unable to accept.
You are not the only one
to shower under water
as brutally hot as you can stand
because you have already
been scorched and incinerated.
You are not the only one
who feels as if you will never, ever
be clean again or whole or safe
or able to look yourself in the mirror
and see the person you saw yesterday.

We need to remember:
they only touched our body;
they hadn't the means to touch our souls.
We may have been bloodied,
torn asunder, but having no heart,
they couldn't touch ours.
We did nothing wrong--
it's all on them.
We need to remember they all
are not that way.
We need to remember that fear
can be a barbed-wire keeping us locked in
as well as others locked out.
We need to remember that
no matter how broken,
we can heal ourselves because
they didn't touch our core.
We can never give that power away--
it is ours.

It feels so private as if
one cannot mention it,
as if there were some shame involved.
There is -- but it is not ours.
Difficult to breech the wall,
to speak out, but there is freedom in that act.
How simple the saying when one no longer cares
if belief is important; when it is the saying that matters.
When one no longer is afraid to point a finger
and accuse of the unmitigated violence
against a stranger.

To be on a witness stand
and see eyes full of derision,
smile mocking;
to hear words denigrate the experience,
accuse of complicity,
insinuate certain actions
is akin to going through it all again
until you see the lights brighten
behind eyes in an all-male jury
and you see not pity, not scorn
but shared shame, blame.

Catharsis in hearing guilt pronounced,
in seeing mocking smile flatten.
Yet, there is no joy, no revenge, just peace.
Vindication. Retribution. Healing.
For the healing is a choice we choose
regardless of courts legal or social.
I was not drunk. I was not coerced.
I had nothing to gain. I was attacked.
Pure and simple. Not so simple, really,
but it happened; I had control stripped away.
I have taken it back. You can, too.
Because you are not alone, and
You are not the only one.