Category: Poem

July 4th is a holiday 
That Americans adore 
A celebration of freedom
With red, white, & blue galore

Barbecues and country music,
Burgers, hot dogs, apple pie
The constant boom of fireworks 
Sparkling colors in the sky

Block parties and family picnics
Are traditions every year
Floating & swimming in the lake
Playing lawn games, drinking beer

An afternoon spent on the beach 
And enjoying the outdoors
Evenings around the campfire
Telling jokes and making S’mores

What should normally be a fun day
Is instead one that I dread
Forever tainted by my past
And the flashbacks in my head

July third, two thousand seven
At an innocent sixteen 
I flew from O’Hare to Frankfurt
Unprepared for the next scene 

I was sexually assaulted
By the soldier on my right
Somewhere over the Atlantic 
In the middle of the night

It’s hard to give an exact date
Switching time zones in the sky 
But by the time the plane landed
It was the Fourth of July 

The holiday and tragedy
Fused together in my brain
Patriotic celebrations
Have come to signify pain

It gets harder each year to smile
And pretend that I am fine
I’ve spent far too long suppressing
All the demons in my mind

Written July 3, 2021

Trigger Warning!

Her heart started pounding in her chest
As she begged for an escape
It turned out her judgments weren’t the best
She didn’t feel too safe

She had made her intentions clear
She didn’t want to have sex
But with him she had reason to fear
For what would happen next

He grabbed her arm and pulled her away
Taking her to his room
He pulled up a chair so she’d stay
As sexual tensions loomed

Feeling uncomfortable she rose to leave
And he leaned in to say goodbye
But the lights went out as he pulled at her sleeve
She should have known he lied

He pinned her down and grabbed at her dress
As the drug ran its course
He reached under, but she was fighting less
She couldn’t compete with force

So she held her breath and closed her eyes
Hoped to feel nothing
Did what she could to just survive
Hoped not to remember a thing

For six minutes, he talked her down
With crude comments in her ear
She thought she was safe with people around
But there wasn’t much to hear

She completely froze – made not a sound
And tried to block out the assault
Shame and guilt still surround
She sometimes thinks it was her fault

Years later the flashbacks remain
Subtle triggers set her off
The memory seared on to her brain
With no hope of rubbing off

Written December 2009
Edited July 2020

I deserve to be happy
To laugh, love, and smile
Without completely changing
My current lifestyle

I deserve to enjoy life
Not always overthink
To go out to bars or clubs
Relax and have a drink

I deserve to look pretty
Without being attacked
Or fearing that what I wore put
A target on my back

I deserve some peace of mind
The chance to clear my head
To process the memories
Of all he did and said

I deserve to trust people
And not assume they’re bad
To break down the walls I built
To prevent feeling sad

I deserve to feel secure
In big groups or alone
In daylight or in darkness
On a trip or in my home

I deserve a good night’s sleep
Uninterrupted rest
With no nightmares or flashbacks
Or uninvited guests

I deserve to love myself
To overcome the shame
To whole-heartedly believe
That I am not to blame

There’s so much that I deserve
But I’m in my own way
And constantly focused on
The loss of yesterday

Written July 2020

Why are my standards for myself
So incredibly high
To the point of self destruction
I let life pass me by

I judge myself too critically
I’m plagued by guilt and shame
Too afraid to let down my walls
Only myself to blame

Blaming myself is comfortable
It’s all about control
If I can write the narrative
Then I define my role

I script others as I see them
I can’t change how they’ll act
The only thing I can rewrite
Is how I will react

But I make myself the villain
I place myself at fault
The author of my misery
The cause of my assault

I analyze each choice I made
That led to the attack
And create a different ending
To take my mistakes back

I get lost in this dream sequence
The script that I conceive
Where happiness is possible
But it’s all make believe 

It’s hard to re-frame tragedy
To let yourself forget
Or to say you learned a lesson
When it’s easier to quit

Life is comprised of decisions
“Destiny” isn’t real
If we blame everything on “fate”
We lose our chance to feel

I have to know that my choices
Caused my assault that night
Cause then it was preventable
Next time I can do it right

Admitting I was targeted
By a total stranger
Leaves me feeling terrified I’ll 
Always be in danger

I can’t make myself a victim
Cause I will lose all hope
In humanity, in justice
In healthy ways to cope

I would never trust new people
I’d always be on guard
When presuming bad intentions
Making friends becomes too hard

If I view people as evil
Is that all I will see?
Do I find the good in others
Or just the bad in me?

Written June 2020

You’re exhausted and need to sleep
So you lie down in bed
With your eyes fixed on the ceiling
You try to clear your head

Of all negative emotions -
Each trauma, each assault
Attempting to quell the flashbacks
That came as a result 

Your sleep is plagued by night terrors
You kick and scream and sweat
Unsure of what was just a dream
And what’s an active threat

You try to rewrite the story
But memories remind 
And you keep falling victim to
The monsters in your mind

Your traumas replay like movies
Each viewing takes a toll
So you refuse to close your eyes
And let him take control

Reality begins to blur
With each sleepless night
It’s easier to stay awake
Than close your eyes and fight

You’re wasting so much energy
And losing too much sleep
But you can’t block out your traumas
By simply counting sheep 

You can’t fall asleep in darkness
Too many shadows lurk
You try to nap in daylight but
It doesn’t always work

You start sleeping with a light on
To feel safe in your bed
Yet fear nothing will save you from
The monsters in your head

Written July 2020