I can’t bring myself to open
Facebook lately.
Yet his name pervades
Hushed among colleagues
Who whisper down an alley
So long I bet I could reach LA
To stand before a billionaire
With as much remorse as
The man who unfriended me
When I recalled his actions.
That makes sense.
My first therapist in training responded
You look like a rape victim
A statement that a freshman in college
Doesn’t expect to hear
More than ten years after the incident
And two years before the next.
Textbook.
But the textbooks don’t tell you
How to end the nightmares
Or speak up when he holds you down
And tells you it’ll be okay.
Ironic but
My family doesn’t know
About any of it.
I just don’t understand
How to find a voice
That’s been suppressed since I was a child.
And how to protest when someone
Feels entitled to take away what they’ve never had.
A childhood
A reputation
The confidence to walk down the street
Without stares of people judging
Your walk of shame–
When you’re just existing.
Julia Mohn is an M.A. student in San Diego, but originally from Pennsylvania. She has been sneaking creative writing classes into her schedule since high school and has a flash fiction piece published to Flash Fiction Magazine titled “Intruding Dots.” She thanks her English teachers over the years for encouraging her to continue writing.
Photo by Jonathan Rados.
