Shower
BY ZOE PASKEWICZ
a flick of the wrist,
and the water turns on
like the electrons fired on in his head
or at least the idiot ones did
valves of hot water creak and groan somewhere down in the
depressions of the dirt where the pipes are
buried with my dignity
somewhere through the fog in my head
i get in turn the dial to cold or maybe denial
i can’t really tell the difference anymore
my shirt is crumpled on the dirty tile floor
the way he probably wanted it in his head,
crumpled in the corner
like i was crumpled
in the corner against
that blue particle board wall,
while he said all the things that he would do to me
i shake the thought off
like how he wanted to shake my clothes off me
and how my hands shake
as i sit on the floor of the shower
in fetal position
suction cups from bath mats pop like the snap
of knuckles preparing for a fight
as i curl in the corner of the headboard-shower door
i was told i looked provocative in my hoodie and jeans
i was told i had it coming
and that boys will be boys
i tell them i know five police officers
and none of them could tell me what i wanted
no needed to hear
that’s why i kept quiet for five months
because no one told me the difference
no one said
the safe word
the safe world of
no
no
no excuses for your actions
if boys will be boys then why
can’t girls be girls and fight back
defend ourselves for once
because we are human too
my coma of his misogyny is broken by a
scream
my scream
it sounds strange being drowned out
in the tears from the sky
oh wait that’s just the showerhead
drowning my screams
drowning
drowning
i am drowning in the thoughts
of what could’ve happened
i take my nails and scrub and scratch
tear my skin to pieces with one hand
tear my hair out with the other
but no matter how hard i pull
i can’t rid my wrist of the
scars from the pen
i had in my hand today while
i filed a police report in the
lunch detention room
lunch is foreign
what is lunch
a five letter word with five hundred million calories stuffed in
between the cracks there’s a cracking knock
on the bathroom door
it’s someone i can’t hear telling me to
get out
like i told him to get out of my face but all i got
were letters from the court and now,
now i know his middle name.
now i know his lawyer’s name
now i know that i wasn’t alone
but i felt alone
i feel alone
i am alone as i sit against the wall on the dirty tile floor in my robe,
crumpled dreams – shirt, beside me
steamy tears run down the mirror – my face
as i sit, questioning why i took that class
why i fought
why i thought it would be okay
and why i believed my glassy-eyed lies of
“you’ll be fine.”
About the Author
Zoe Paskewicz attends Kenowa Hills High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She describes her work is a cross between a diary and a session of therapy.
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