I wonder what made you think that it was a good thing
To take her hands and lead them towards your body,
Lean towards her face with yours, gazing at her mouth,
You must have smelled her discomfort, tasted the fear on her skin,
And yet, you thought you made a crime acceptable,
Making her pay for the trust she had in you.
She followed your lead, she didn’t know better, maybe she did,
Step after step, but was taught to obey adults, to do what men say.
Her body had been born wise and impenetrable, but her mind had
Been conformed to outside desires and dangerous rules, and suppressed
It to fit in, to let in, to let herself be absorbed and dehumanised.
Whilst other girls blossomed in their sheltered homes,
She became a girl lost in a woman’s body with feelings
That went too far, that catapulted her out of her circles.
She tried desperately to hold on to her dolls and figurines,
A world that she was able to control and manoeuvre,
Where she was aware of every single step and nothing was unknown.
He took her there, away from herself and into herself
With his fingerprints, his tongue, and her body reacted.
It didn’t take long for the images in her head to be accompanied
By voices. She would never know whether they belonged to her. Truly.
Or whether it had all been him. His fantasies. His force and order
Of things. His sexuality that did not die with him but lived on within her.
She’d look at herself in the mirror, at her naked body and wondered
Whether the traces of his hands would linger forever on her skin,
Whether they left imprints on her, a scent, his, a longing that would never
Extinguish.
A language no matter how deeply engraved in her texture, forever
Alien to her mouth.
The rhythm of his breath reaching every single depth within
Her body.
And when he died, he’d think of her, and she’d be absent, separated,
Irresolute, memories churning, wandering from street to street, staring into the
Dead eyes of worn-out stuffed animals, thinking I know exactly how it feels.
Croque-Melpomene 