"This is that poem that everyone scrolls pastwhen they find out that it’s about rape,and it’s not..."

“This is that poem that everyone scrolls past

when they find out that it’s about rape,

and it’s not about true love or a one night stand.

This is that poem you read about the girl

who was walking down the street to get milk

because her father told her that he didn’t want

to drink black coffee before work because

it always made his tongue feel bitter,

and it always made his breath smell like rot.

This is the part in the poem where people

usually stop reading and start asking themselves

what she was wearing, or how late it was,

or what neighborhood she lived in. But I don’t

have to tell you that she lived in a small town

with more animals than people for you

to understand that it can happen anywhere.

She was 13 years old, and her chest had not

even molded itself into womanhood yet,

so she had to have been asking for it then, right?

It was in the alleyway that her father

showed her as a shortcut to get back home

before the sun went to sleep.

Before it happened, she thought it was her father,

hoped it was her father, but the rays of the moon

showed her otherwise. Was she asking for it then?

When the nameless man who took from her

what she never even knew existed, left her there,

beaten, violated, and unsure of what she did

that caused this punishment, she stared at the moon.

She stared at the moon and wondered why,

what she could have possibly done to deserve this.”

- "She was only a child," - Colleen Brown