Why did you choose me?
How did you choose me?
Why was that choice only yours to make?
Did you see me for only a second
Or follow me from bar to bar,
Deciding that I was yours to take?
Did I seem easy?
Naïve?
Unimportant?
Perfectly wasted?
Your night too boring,
Too dry,
Too lonely,
Getting frustrated?
Was it my dark blue skinny jeans,
Maybe my awkward nature,
Or the shots I was taking with a friend?
That made you assume,
My night,
My fun,
My trust and sense of safety,
Deserved to come to an end?
Did slipping something in my drink
Make you feel less guilted?
Or did it assure you
That I wouldn’t leave you embarrassingly jilted?
Did I push back
Or fight?
Did I threaten you with no?
Did people stare?
Did they question,
If I had wanted to go?
How can I live
With the fact
That only you know?
How can I live
With the memory
Of waking up in that car?
Jeans unbuttoned, pulled down.
Backseat, doors locked.
“How did I get here from the bar?”
Stumbling down from the garage
To the hotel lobby.
Panicked thoughts began rushing,
“What on earth happened to me…”
Terrified and alone,
I fumbled on the phone
To call the only number
From memory that I know.
I can’t.
Incapable and lost,
I frantically looked around
For one familiar face
In the drunken crowd.
When back with my friends,
I could see it on their faces.
Irritation and doubt.
Again, I’ve sent them on
One of many drunken chases.
They won’t believe…
I can’t believe…
This time it wasn’t my fault.
I promise I didn’t want
To become the victim of assault.
I sobbed as I tried to make sense and explain
Everything that happened to me after I went MIA.
They pulled me in,
Hugged me tight
Told me everything would be “alright”.
Yeah… all right…
“I…I need a rape kit done please”
My whisper seemed to echo in the hospital.
And for a split second I considered,
Ending it all.
Then the doctor shattered my belief that
A rape kit would say
Who?
Why?
What?
Had happened to me that day.
As I spoke with the police,
My truth seemed less real.
Strip your clothes,
Scrape under nails,
Swab for semen,
It all seemed like a great ordeal.
So I left.
I said stop.
My dignity the only victim of a theft.
I found my parents,
I went home,
I cried all night,
Feeling alone.
Little did I know,
There would be
Months and years
Of complete misery.
Depression,
Alcoholism,
Anger,
OCD.
Once again
Why…
Did you have to choose me?
To Choose A Happy Heart 