When Flavia Agnes Tells You Your Rape Isn’t Real

When you click on a link and read Flavia Agnes — 
(That feminist lawyer whose work you cited in college)
(Not a name you expected to need preceded by warnings)
(A symbol, you had thought, of some hope) — 
Saying your rape wasn’t real
Not Real Real
Not worthy of newsprint
Or of defence
Or even a conviction
(If you’d dared take it to court;
you didn’t)
And your breath falters — 
(Like it did after the first time you said
Stop I don’t want to
and he
Kept
Going
On)
(Like it does every time
your coolest aunt
laughs at Girls
Dumb Enough To Get Drug Raped)
(Like it does when you
Say Nothing
when your brother is talking about
Gang Rapes
Since you’re ok, right?
Mostly?) — 
And you tell yourself
They aren’t talking about YOUR rape — 
They are.
Your rape — 
(Where you went numb
And where you wished him
happy birthday four months later
and where it didn’t hurt as much
as the UTI you got two weeks after
and where it did hurt enough
to never again walk past
the bus stop where he
would wait for you) — 
That rape — 
(Which you didn’t 
Tell anyone about
Because you figured
They’d want more 
bruises
And he wrote
Such funny political poems
That everyone liked him
on Facebook) —

It was Real.

— Amba Azaad
27th August 2016