Submission

A poem for healing from sexual trauma.

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

I remember it vividly: your
long hair lying lank over
your forehead, and the knife
like an instrument of
magic between your fingers.
Heavy metal screams from my
speakers. I begged you, my mind bent from the power of your
intensity, and you laughed
your way into Hell.
Do I give permission
freely to another, to hurt me
and maim me and desecrate
me, as you did?
No longer, with these scars
you wrought all tangled
with the love you
forsake. No longer, do I
have the power to give over
my whole soul. No, this
soul belongs to me, entirely;
no scars can mar it, like you did
to my skin. I am not your
submission to dominate. I am
growing. That is my fate.

Sam Ripples is an essayist and novelist living in southern Colorado. She has an interest in words that…