practicing the art of opening

are you open i n g  your s e l f 
to me? are you ready to receive - 
ready to hear about the time - are you ready - 
the time I was raped that I can’t get out of my head? even 
after so many years and so much education 
and the children 
and the forging of something new 
over and over and over again, day 
after day, and the tenderness, 
and that most welcome heat. 
are you willing to hear? does it depend 
on the circumstances? what if I told you 
I was fifteen and my football player boyfriend 
ignored my protests? what if he called me beautiful 
and I barely felt a thing? what if 
I was thirty and two armed men 
bound me with my own belt? what if they stroked my scars
and wanted me to cum? what if the first time was 
neither gentle nor slow? what if after a while 
the bad sex turned into something better? 
what if the hurt turned to stone? what if the stone 
was a fire? what if my mouth tastes like ashes? what if 
my uncle’s fingers lingered too long? what if 
my daughter’s rape kit was administered by the same 
nurse as my own had been, only one year prior? 
what if you were that nurse? 
would you remember me? my name, my face, my
tattoos, my voice? 
the way it sounded when it was cold, cold, colder,
cracking, shattered, shocked piano chords, strained to
broken, glass crunching underfoot. later, you would 
have picked out shards from the grooves of your 
sneakers, carefully 
wrapping them in tissue before placing them gently in 
the trash. I can turn every dick joke 
into a rape joke that makes men soft and small while
simultaneously bringing closer 
every woman in the room. This
is a feat of magic. I can turn my rage into 
a college degree, into work, into hope; this is a feat of 
strength. it is the way I say fuck you. 
Fuck you. FUCK YOU. 
the way I defy architecture 
in the art of opening.