September 27th, 2018

I sit in my bedroom

and listen through a screen, to a woman’s voice

from a courtroom

where she recounts

a night that changed

her life,

changed her.

A testimony,

of words too familiar

a story I know

but somehow

still, I find myself captivated

by this woman

by this story

by these words.

As she describes

a haunting hazy memory

of a party in Maryland

with a boy “visibly drunk”

who pushed

and pulled

and ripped

and forced

Her.

I was there

in a haunting memory

of a party in Massachusetts

with a boy who was “visibly drunk”

who pushed

and pulled

and ripped

and forced

Me.

Listening to her

my chest grew heavy

with the weight of his body,

pushed against me

too confused

too scared

to scream

while being pushed

and pulled

and ripped

and forced

and mocked

by a patriarchy

who fight to hold me down

and keep me silenced

As I sit in my bedroom

and continue to listen through a screen.