a conversation about hitting

when she talks about the past,
she does so with a numbness
that has been developed over
years of trying to push it behind
her---these are the mechanisms
of endurance that had been taught
during years of therapy &
she is suspicious about them having
done a bit of good, because
when she is alone & closes her
eyes, she can still remember
the events that have torn apart her
psyche &
in the most unfortunate moments,
she can still make out the face.

how many men have been sitting with
a new acquaintance & the talking,
be it flirtatious or otherwise,
seems to take a serious turn quickly &
suddenly, so unexpected, she lets
him in on what has happened to her in
the past, no matter how recent that past is?
&
she confides, she tells the stories like
she was reading them from a book,
showing almost nothing left, until the
man reacts & then she might very well
try & blame herself for where, when &
how the abuse came to be---
but there are the statistics &
even if one is so misogynistic
as to believe that all the women polled are
in fact lying,
such colors are shown quickly &
quite often they are exhibited on the side of
the molester, the rapist or the abuser, be him
of the physical or the psychological.

a savage truth exists,
for when she confides, she can never be sure,
even if all her senses tell her that this one is
ok,
she has the torture of the past to remind her &
so there are always walls, always barbed wire
fences bunched up &
a lack of trust that could outweigh
anyone’s.

to think that there are still men living,
who have never had a conversation about
hitting with a woman who has been tormented
& violated,
to think that there are men alive who ignore the
statistics, think they are all lies or just
don’t give a shit,
makes one wonder if this really is the
21st century.