Moments Built Upon Words

Boys Like You

Thieves in the night are only as scary as the darkness they invoke
They lay their heavy bodies on yours, ebbing up your curves until they sit, eyes wide and hungry for lust
And they have the nerve to ask how you are doing, six feet under their heavy gaze, and all I can manage is a fine
Fine, and my eyes close, refusing the tears their escape
Fine, and my spirit is stamped out like a short cigarette butt
Fine, and the ocean that threatens to drown me rattles my inside bars
Fine, and his crooked smile spreads to his eyes for a moment
Not everyone can see it but when you're held fast to one spot, you're only awareness his presence as he leans and leers, threatening to spill over into you and all you can mumble out is a damn fine.

I hear a soft rumble in my chest sometimes that tells me to spit fire
It commands that I straighten my spine and build myself a defense because the next blow is gonna hurt the worst
But I'm gonna make it, if only I learn to change my reply
This soft murmur grows angry as I beg it's thunder to tell me of it's ways
It teases my timid mouth to walk among the dead for a moment, hearing their thick words struggle out over swollen tongues, what is only to be explained as fine

Presently, that thunder doesn't groan lowly anymore. It snaps like white lightning, no warning to be heard.
That slimy and loose fine suddenly morphs into a hardened stiff no and this time, I don't shrink
Shrink, and he fills in more space than I could ever occupy
Shrink, and he'll swallow me whole
Shrink, and I'll be small enough that he won't expect a blow from behind
Silence has its purpose if only one remembers to follow it with a deafening blow
No, and he trips on his words, his eyes glitching side to side as he tries to process this word
No, and he reverts to his smaller years when this once was a word bellowed often from a woman
No, and he sees his mother before him, shaming him for the wrong he has pursued.
I heed no warning, I ignore his calls of endless apologies that fall off his tongue in perfectly recited order.
But I'm not that other girl, or the one before her, or the one before her. Your execution of repeated words is no excuse for your poor behavior. But boys, they never learn. Thank god I'm a woman, because darling, I've learned a thing or two about boys like you.