the thing I appreciate about rape

Is a sentence I never thought I would write. 

But the thing, in hindsight, I really appreciate 

about rape 

is how fast it was.

Five minutes

Fifteen

Maybe an hour

These were tiny flecks of my life.

Nothing to scoff at for an unwanted part 

of someone else’s body being inside me,

But I never appreciated 

The brevity 

Of those violations 

Until now.

Clearly I trusted these men 

Enough to be alone with them.

One in my bedroom at my parents house,

Me too blacked out to consent or remember

Yet still conscious enough to participate.

I woke up and vomited.

He cleaned it up then had sex with me again,

Or so he told me the next day.

The nice thing about that one was

The lack of memories, their abscence.

I trusted them as strangers,

But I didn’t know them

Didn’t decide again and again,

Day after day, month after month,

Fight after fight, didn’t continue 

Deciding to keep going deeper, 

To say yes and yes again.

I said yes to spending time with them

Yes to going into their house, 

Their room

Their yurt on the playa

At burning man 

After doing Ketamine.

Yes to some degree 

Of fooling around,

But it was all 

So fast

In hindsight.

And once! 

Just once.

That is a luxury, 

In fact.

I never knew 

How good

I had it.

With you, 

My love, 

My liar,

100% of our sex 

Mas non-consensual

Almost a year,

Almost daily, 

Sometimes more.

Non-consensual in the sense 

Of having told you 

Directly

In English, the language 

we both speak

That I couldn’t be with a liar

That that would be the

Worst thing you could

Do to me, especially if

It involved another woman

And I didn’t want to be 

Involved with you

If you were still on anyone’s hook

If there was anyone you’d go back to 

After we broke up

If there was any unfinished business

And you said no, 

Definitely no, 

You swore no.

Non-consensual 

In the sense that 

When I asked

“Does she know you have a girlfriend”

And you said yes 

And yes 

And yes 

When the answer was no, 

And you knew that

Because you aren’t delusional, 

just devoid of integrity!

You knew I wasn’t 

Asking casually,

That I wasn’t ‘just curious’

That any old answer 

Would do

You knew if you said no, 

She didn’t know

I wouldn’t carry on 

About my business

Washing my face, 

Putting my clothes 

In drawers, squeezing 

Your cum out of me

Making your food

Saying I love you

Your lying lips on mine

Your arms wrapt around me

Your body pressed against me

Every night.

You knew that 

If I knew

I would leave

So you lied

And enjoyed access 

To what you knew 

I would not have

Freely given

If I knew the truth.

I looked it up, and it isn’t rape, 

Though it feels like it should be

Feels like it is in my body

That I still have to live in

That you helped yourself to

While manipulating my reality

To get your way.

The best I could come up with was 

“Sexual violation 

By deception”

Such a weak phrase

For such a stiff crime.

Almost effortlessly I recall 

You pumping inside of me

The whine you’d make as you came

Your facial features squeezed 

Into what I called 

‘Monster face.’

My boyfriend, my love, 

My partner who said 

He was all mine,

That if I wanted to claim him

I might find some wild country,

But he was mine to claim.

If I could take a knife and 

Carve out every bit of me 

That you touched I would.

I’d pile my flesh in chunks 

On the patio table I bought 

And we never used, you 

Too grumpy to carry the food 

10 feet outside, complaining

About the weather, 

the dust,

This or that, and that

As you were wont to do.

Why isn’t it stealing 

When the giver is tricked?

Why isn’t it rape 

When you lied 

To gain and maintain access

To what you never 

Should have touched 

In the first place?

Take my lips, my breasts 

That you loved, 

The darkness between

My legs

Take my smile, my laughter

My loving gaze and caresses.

I’ll pluck my eyes for you myself.

Take the furniture I bought to 

“Make ‘our’ house a home”

After those other violations

(years later I still 

can’t call it rape)

I blamed myself.

I shouldn’t have been drinking

Or doing ketamine

Or alone with a man 

I didn’t know well.

I shouldn’t have said 

Yes to kissing

When I wasn’t a yes

To everything.

It was my fault, I thought.

This time it was all you,

So clearly you

You started it

You pushed it forward

You made the promises

You told the lies

You kept me in when I tried to go

You came to get me back when I left

You said what you had to

To get what wasn’t meant to be yours

You took what you wanted

Then you ran back to her

When I took it away.