After awhile, you stop hearing it.
After awhile, you can hear
the push threat he was going to kill me terror
tears blow skin crisping black and swollen
without blinking, can mouth the terrible words,
“average rape history” to dismiss years of pain.
A trust betrayed. A girl who spends her life cringing in corners,
crying at night, who flinches when you lift your hand.
“Incest history, possible physical abuse.”
The skin grows thick after a thousand stories,
for how could you look into those eyes–eyes after eyes–
and not break, come apart from the pain?
Skin blistered returns with calluses.
So too with the heart.
And yet there are days when I wake and rage
that any of this could happen, that I should
be able to listen day after day and feel nothing,
no fresh outrage, no shock of horror when someone
tells me how he tied her up and tortured her
with broken glass, screwdrivers, razor blades,
raped her with a knife, curling iron
all through her childhood. I’ve heard it all.
And yet each story touches me,
renews the dedication of a numb and battered heart
not to turn away, to keep striking sparks
to rekindle the flame.
I can’t hear their stories. But I can’t shut them out either,
can’t stop hearing them one after another crying out pain,
can’t forget that these things happen,
and should never happen.
No child should have to watch
as her daddy chokes her mommy
half to death and beats her head bloody against the floor, furniture
then sends her to her room.
No woman should have to huddle terrified in a corner
count the pennies towards escape
knowing he will try to kill her when she leaves
hold her children hostage, stalk and beat her
senseless and bloody
while the police do nothing
yet again.
If she leaves she goes to poverty.
She was beaten for thirty years. Some times she thought
she was dead, it’s over. No more broken ribs,
no more standing on the kitchen floor for hours
not allowed to touch anything,
as he stalked through the house
rampaging, coming back to check up on her
again and again, hour after hour,
making sure she didn’t move. I’ve heard it before,
the push threat he was going to kill me terror
tears blow skin crisping black and swollen
and I don’t blink: I offer her calm
like a safety rope, listen sympathetically,
tell her of her options.
I remember–she got out. Some do.
But it still hurts
no matter how much you tell yourself you’re over it,
you can’t hear,
stick your fingers in your ears and still one day
the pain will crack you open
and break you to pieces inside, bone by bone,
like the broken glass he made her eat
unless you do something about it–
which is why I work on the Crisis Line.