I have heard that the body remembers what the mind does not. Whoever’s mind this poem is birthed from, I pray that your body heals from this memory.

she was the kind of girl whose shyness
silenced her, stole her & sold her into an
endless loop of simple pleasures. 

even when she was in pain, labored
& stained with sins that could never begin to
recount the many times she scrubbed herself tonight. 

& so she gets up to do so. she
leaves, walks away slightly. she
is grabbed and belittled to the cold wooden 

tiles of dormitory. she is pushed and 
slammed to her knees, and met eyes that
want to be pleased into purgatory.

now, she’s ordered, demanded even. 

her muscles sprouted roots to the floor and
immediately began to bloom. an endless life
cycle that would kill every chance of

being herself again. reincarnation is real. her
throat says so. her scalp knows this. she is 
buried between stiff hips and a pulsating body, 

pleading, please, please me. holding her neck in 
place, in position to be the first face — 
of eternity. 

she doesn’t know what to call
it or to call for help. so she does the only thing she 
knows herself. 

she keeps her head 
there, right
there.

Process

This piece was written after taking a break from writing during a peer-to-peer session with Asma, who had a plethora of prompts to choose from. This prompt was to write a poem whose title does not reflect the action taken in the poem. There are sensitive themes within this poem, so I decided to focus the perspective on the survivor of this event to empower her in a situation that did the opposite. Using concise stanzas, line breaks, rhymes, alliteration, and imagery, the speaker can tell her own story instead of being told from a masculine perspective.