Body of Evidence

Body of Evidence:
By Anthony Conwright:

Your body is a temple
Built on pillars of strength from both sides of your spinal chord
Built by confidence and warmed with your self-esteem
Lit with the light you see when you look at yourself in the mirror.

But fingertips dipped in poison, drunk from power, clenched tight like a wrecking ball eclipsed the beauty that you grew from the roots of your childhood,
making a mirage of compliments that once reaped the fruits of your self-image.

Turning your temple into a body of evidence. Littered with fingerprints from an assailant that broke down the doors to your legs. Breaking through stained glassed windows of virginity and putting up barriers around your body silhouetted by caution tape.  Turning your skin into a crime scene.

I watched you try to rebuild your foundation by powdering over the bruises and scars. Masquerading your tears with curtains of mascara.  Scrubbing your skin off your bones until your body is as red as the flags you now see on the skin of men.  I watched you feel so lonely you try to squeeze air and hold it between your chest and that the accompaniment of tears only feels like adding salt to your wounds.  And the weight of holding your own cross makes it hard to free your hands and pick up the broken pieces of your emotions.

And here I am with you. As we try to make love, with the ghost of an invisible male body between us.  A relic from the past that peeks its head between moments of intimacy that makes our sexuality hide beneath our bed.

I can feel the bruises he left on your heart when I put myself inside of you; I felt the death of your skin cells from his touch. I could feel the heat of his tongue kissing you with a soul that needs a mint. I want to tie his feet to concrete and watch him sink to the bottom of an ocean full of screams capsulated within your tears and watch him sink to the bottom. I hope his semen had the balls to commit suicide.

I wish there were words I could say to comfort you.  So I grabbed your hands and stuck scars from your palms into my stomach until you could put the taste of your pain in my mouth and give birth to a phrase that would make everything ok.  And all I could think of is survivor.

There is strength in your character so strong you can grow another person inside of you.   You have taken broken pieces of your shattered stain glass window and made mosaics that will be put into the museum of life to be a beacon of light for other woman that survive.  You have the courage to combat silence and say rape is wrong, rape is wrong, rape is wrong so humanity survives. Your body is still a temple to be respected and loved. No man neither Jesus nor God will are capable of experiencing what you have.  You have survived.