sleep

 contains you

and unlike resin cruz

you're not stabbing me dozens of times

or shooting me until i'm riddled with holes

and the blood so slick smears the floor...

so i can't go back

but the nights number what curls like infinity before me

and i wonder if i am glad i am dying sooner

than when i was 19 and being raped nearly every day

i changed my profile picture thinking it would be so nice to show you just me

not my high school graduation photo with the man who abused me in every single way possible for four years

but i guess it alarmed

anger

to dream of you--

--i have only dreamed of these real men:

dad (coming to beat and rape me and being eaten alive by crabs and lobsters bursting from their tanks in a basement aquarium while my deaf classmates and i were on a field trip)

clint forgiving me for being his rape victim

dad (shooting me to death for telling him i couldn't be molested anymore, and then one month later--to the day--going about my business as he hanged himself in his basement to give me an incest-free Valentine's Day funeral at which to speak)

david (resin cruz: shooting me to death, or stabbing me to death, for loving him and trying not to have been raped by him, or having had my arm nearly broken for $160 from the ATM, or 

slapped in the mouth for loving him)

jeff (the kids' dad, shooting me to death or stabbing me to death for being so strong i left him as many times as it took...ally made me calculate it to be struck in the face with the bare facts, and i was raped at least 560 times by jeff...556 of these times between october of 2014 and february of 2015. yes, a minimum of two times a day, usually four to seven, for not wanting my legs to open for him, and for asking where he'd pawned my gold jewelry)

and now you. and it's just loving silence

but that's not even the truth

you wish you'd never met me