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 go unnoticed" 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 place 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 And loosened your grip Enough to let me sneak To freedom while you worked. And still your God Did not send for me To salvage what was left Of what I might have been Had you not 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-- Neobeatnik 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 knew you were Because four years had 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, Having paid too little For a dept too great-- Praying on children-- Cheap and disposable-- 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.
Reason for writing:
First published in The Orange Review, 1996
Birth sign: Not entered
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