He told me,
“It’s not rape if I’m your boyfriend.”
I was dressed as a slutty nurse
at that Halloween party.
Did I ask for it?
I cried.
I said no.
And then I just lay there
in the bushes with twigs in my hair,
white mini dress stained with dirt,
tears slipping silently down my face
while he thrust,
drunk and sloppy,
in his pimp costume.
Should I have known?
“It’s not rape if I’m your boyfriend.”
And I stayed with him
for another year of coercion.
So was it not?
The next morning,
I was hungover on Captain Morgan
and angry with myself
for something he had done.
And for years,
I believed him.
After the breakup.
After other men.
Wondering why my body
kept recoiling
from something my mind
still refused to name.
“It’s not rape if I’m your boyfriend.”
A few years later,
his best friend
murdered his girlfriend.
They had always been
like peas in a pod.
Two young men
who mistook loving a woman
for owning one.