(Claire scribbles her raw experience, in close succession to her previous poem; finding herself frozen by terror and with visions of her assault holding her hostage. She's angry with herself for being unable to act on the behalf of a drunken stranger who's being taken advantage of by the caterwauling gang of men who physically penned-in the group of girls Claire was sitting with at the club. She's also astounded by the lack of action by anyone else - but then if she feels this way, who knows who else does?!)
So unfamiliar with this feeling -
It's got no name, no colour, no sound,
But it's under my skin;
Creeping, scratching, gnawing around.
I see the way their entitlement lifts them,
To do what they want with disregard,
The paralysis of the trigger they've hit
Without any intent, I'm completely disarmed;
I can't move to protest,
I can't speak to alarm.
Without any contact,
Their behaviour causes harm.
I think that it's anger;
This scratching that gnaws -
At; myself, my past,
At; the trigger and the cause.
At; how dare they do what they please,
With our stuff, with our presence, even with our bodies.
At; how easy it is for them to parade, un challenged,
As the people who fear them are looped in their damage.
At; them assuming control and laughing in its wake,
And all I can do is sit, my mind racing as I shake.
I can see what might happen,
Which is shaped by my past -
My ghost is gone, yet omnipresent -
How long will this last?
My words have no power.
My voice has no weight.
Thinking I had a handle on this,
Was a fundamental mistake.
But above all I'm lost;
In the fact I can't feel -
Yet this nameless, colourless, soundlessness...
Is overwhelmingly real.
YOU ARE READING
Turbulence
PoetryA series of poems from the POV of Claire, whose last year has seen her survive both a sexual assault in parallel to a deep, intoxicating first love shrouded in secrecy and loss. During this turbulence and trauma she writes to gain distance and under...
