The Rape Joke
The rape joke is that sixteen was a series of getting away and never telling your parents.
The rape joke is that you shouldn't have let him.
But resilience sounds like the weight of denial worn so near a man's throat, it can't help but stand on the wrong side of choices.
The rape joke is that it felt good.
Good enough that his fingers were busy crouched like a stranger, over and inside you cutting through uncommitted furies.
Bellowing secrets of living hells revealed, walking five miles through long, dead things before dashing for the other half of assertions going in opposite directions without goodbyes.
Imagine the rape joke now?
Belly down on the hard floor, your face resting on it.
The rape joke peels your black T-shirt off your shoulders, unhooking your bra, rubbing its bony lower side before kneading the air out your chest as if it were there.
Having done this hundreds of times now, it no longer apologises, but insists: "I'm here, right here, beneath you."
I know what comes after this, The scuff marks of decade-old sins lending the body-width of something inconsolable. I know it is like the foul taste of memories that turn you inside-out, like you were never one for the losing. I know how you wade deep into murkiness where no one can scrape you away like empty houses mauled within early darkness.
The rape joke says: if it did hurt, you know better now to teach your body how to cope with the cruelty already. The body of time is elastic; it can take almost anything you give it and heals quickly.
The rape joke is that you had been imagining his hands on your body for nights, but won't let up the act. The rape joke is that he knew how it felt to have that kind of chaos inside your body. He walked with a gaze that felt like slugs crawling all over your skin, marking you as his. You wanted to wipe off the slime.
The rape joke is that you were just some over-the-counter flavour of the week; like strawberries with a distinct, sweet and bracingly sour taste, rummaging through the careless tongues of very thirsty men, already too attached to their fully developed tendencies, asking of each end, where have you been?
The rape joke says there's this lovely ache deep inside you the next day, after you've been had by a man who knows exactly what he's doing. How to put his hands on you and touch you in just the right way.
The rape joke is that he thought it was so great, what he could do with his love for women.
The rape joke is that he looks like the worst cliché of a monster. A kind of hand-me-down filth that slips through the nights, going as far as a story can take him.
It gets funnier.
The rape joke is that you're the next woman stewarding this tradition well; the victory dance of someone who has salvaged a draw.
The rape joke says you were his favourite place to be: hollow and habitable. Nothing could have prepared you for the reality of this moment.
The rape joke says, "Come on, he doesn't know why he did it too." And now that's a little funny.
The rape joke is always funny. I know this. I was walking down a street when a boy with a face not like any other pulled me back, two minutes away from the joke that will come: to hold my body in counsel for all their many cravings. It crawls up your arms, suggesting more than pity stories or the shape of a woman thing.
The rape joke is called a soap opera for men only.
The rape joke is that there are no fates far worse than death. Fate screwed you over.
The rape joke is that you are telling it wrong;
YOU were the one at a party with alcohol and wild music. Which made you laugh. The rape joke says people who attend such parties get raped.
The rape joke is that you are some pocket-sized wonder woman complex, so pretension becomes concretised.
The rape joke is never funny.
The rape joke is that you were face up. Wearing a pretty thin dress. Later you ripped that dress off. The whole of you pressed down on a mattress the entire time and every pummel pushing you deeper into the mattress as if giving you the buoyancy to rise up to meet the next. This is your rhythm. The pace quickens by the second, frantic and rough.The momentum grows, teaching you how to hold a man the same way water slips through the hands, devouring the need to hold on.
The rape joke is that misery has a way of reeling you in and spitting you out without a second's guilt. Five years later, knives grow their fingers into you.
The rape joke is that you went home like nothing ever happened. You still feel his hands under your dress, free marauders running up your thighs.
Here's a man whose arms are wide enough to gather, mold, and slip the skittering bits of nightmares into you wherever you go.