Poetry Series – Body Keeps Score

On the topic of rape because while a word may not lose meaning through being said, it tends to relinquish it’s power, control, so you can reclaim it for yourself:

No is still no
and rape is still rape
even in the confines of a relationship
even when you call it an inconvenience, rather than its name.
Rape is still rape
and the body keeps score
even of the things the mind pushes down
Keeps quiet,
I said quiet,
QUIET!,
it quiets them.
But my body still feels the betrayal.
Rape is still rape
even when you tell yourself time and time and time again
that it’s unfair to call this shameful feeling, that name
there are people attacked by strangers in the streets,
forever walking around afterward, this creeping sense of unsafe.
But rape is still rape,
in the form of persistent pressure
in response to an equally persistent no
even in the form of quietly, shamefully, caving when no goes unaccepted.
And it’s still rape when the creeping sense of unsafe
isn’t just situationally, it’s not walking down the streets
but it’s as simple as existing inside my body.
Rape is still rape,
even if no one knows
even if you don’t admit it to yourself – for a decade or more, I lied
Your body, my body still reacts to it
It’s the one keeping score.