The Night That All Innocence Was Lost Poem by Katherine H. Belle

There are nights when you cross my mind
Not often, but enough to keep your memory alive
Your face forces itself upon my spirit
On nights when I lay in bed
Drunk with the want of sleep
Your shadow comes creeping in
From behind the barricade I built around your memory
Vivid pictures play from the projector
Onto a blank and unforgiving screen
And your voice comes booming
From the turntable inside my mind
I do not remember the pitch of your voice
But I remember your tone
You spoke smoothly
Confidently
But every so often I would catch a break
Filled with some kind of primal
And unnatural want
Urgent with need

I remember my body
My eleven year old frame
Caught between being a child
And being a woman
Lacking the curves
That my Twenty-six year old
Figure sports now
Trembling beneath your large and forceful hands
My breasts small and barely forming
Cold beneath your palms
And the skin on my stomach
Caught fire in the worst possible way
As you traced my child like lines
To just beyond the elastic waist band
Of my floral print panties

I remember your mouth
Hard and pressed against mine
Your tongue, wet and hot
Forcing it's way past my pursed lips
And my voice being caught in your breath
Swallowed by your promise
That what you were doing to me way okay
I prayed that I could muster up the courage to scream
Or that my brother or one of your sons
Just feet from where you held me captive
Would turn their heads from their games
Or that either of my parents
Would walk up the stairs
And leave the conversion they were having with your wife
To find me wide eyed and terrified
Caught in the clutches of your unnatural embrace