Walls

Content Warning: Sexual coercion

My body is a church that many people visit

In and out, in and out

But it is not me that they worship

They only see their own hunger reflected back at

them

From empty eyes

And feel my pleasure when they hear me scream

The singing of the choir, little boys and little girls

crying out to their God, ‘Oh God!’

 

I’m screaming out in pain

But he can’t hear me

I can’t hear me

All we can hear are the sounds of sticky bodies and

Release

His body is silhouetted in the flickering

Candles that are not candles

Stained glass windows twinkle rainbows outside

 

He thrusts forward.

Again and again.

And again

He is not like the last

Or maybe he is

He is lost

He is broken

A lamb

Forlorn

I clutch at this, at him

Nails sliding

Further in

They are all lost

I hold myself out for them

For the sore, the heaving

All for –

Nothing

 

He forces me open, pushing

Opening me up for

Forgiveness

 

Pulling from me, myself

 

“This is my body”

Luke 22:19

“Remember me”

 

The blood of the covenant spills on to the floor

 

I pull up my jeans

I can still feel him running down my legs

He leaves me at the train station

I am left crying in a bathroom stall

40p to get in to a bathroom stall

I don’t even need to shit

 

Shit.

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Woroni, Woroni Radio and Woroni TV are created, edited, published, printed and distributed. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.