I wish I had more words for
“terrorized.”

just another verse
picking at its stitches,
grunting from the dark and
taking educated guesses at the Rorschach blot
that spreads across its skirt.
but writing with cadence,
inflection, downplaying
it with rhythm as you
try to capture the humiliation of
all the little violations
that add up to today
without one strong word
or accurate verb
to describe the way a knife
sticks for a second and you moan
the wrong way.

what sounds better to you?
I say over coffee, trying to
finish some titles.

“besieged” or “PTSD”
or simply
“raped?”

“the act of naming things”