by Brett Axel
When you stole me, I wrote a poem.
In time I had
Two shoe boxes full –
Self-indulgent, “I am not
like other people” poems –
Pitiful, “I am so alone
lost in a strange world” poems –
Trite, “The cold, dark world
doesn’t understand me” poems –
Tautological, “My blue death
would disappear in the cobalt sky” poems –
Then I wrote praises
to your loving God
In hopes that He
would hear my lies
And deem me of sufficient value
to warrant a rescue –
I never was
And my sins were not forgiven
as you, my lover,
My rapist,
were prepared a glace of glory in Heaven –
Your account washed clean
by innocent blood
poorly spent.
But I became tall
and hair grew on my balls
and you lost interest in them
and loosened your grip
Enough to let me sneak
to freedom while you worked
And still you God did not send for me
to salvage what was left
of what I might have been
had you taken me
while walking home from school.
I became an adult
And hair grew on my face
And I infiltrated society –
Passing as one of the undamaged –
Writing my poems in seclusion
Until I had two floppy disks full
Blank verse narrative poems
Metaphysical ultimate reality poems
Existential absurdist poems
Neo-beatnik thought stream poems.
Until I became a child again
Long enough to remember
The rope burned wrists
The umbrella flood lamps
Long enough to testify.
And then, bastard
You pleaded guilty
And stole that from me as well
And over the next thousand days
I edited and refined
what I would have said
had I been given the chance.
I was not informed when you were released
but I know you were
because four years have passed
and you were only given three
Having been caught,
not with your lips
around some child’s secret,
but trafficking the pictures
you made when I was young.
And now you are somewhere
in my child's world
lurking near schoolyards,
preying on children,
cheap and disposable as always –
And the poems I write
do not get circulated
as widely as the pictures
you took of me
float anonymously
between your kind
on the internet.
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I found this somewhere I can't recall, a few years ago. This poems is one of the most poignant things I've ever read and it speaks to me in more ways than I wished for.
