Rayelyn Mallari //
Content Warning: The following poem contains themes of sexual violence, suicide, and PTSD that may be traumatizing or uncomfortable to some readers.
Part I – Here Lies My Silence
September
Sixth grade
I’m the girl in the cafeteria
plastic gloves and a hair net
Wiping down tables
I see him
As I’m sweeping corn into a dustpan
The tall tan man sees me and smiles
Walks over and asks me,
“Hey, want to help me clear out
The back room? There’s a lot of stuff
And I could use a hand.”
“Yes, I will help you.”
We walk up the ramp
He opens the door for me
I see an empty metal crate
sports equipment all over the floor
Seems obvious what he wants me to do
His name…
Mr. Cordova
The school custodian
He insists that everyone calls him Tony
He stands at the cafeteria entrance every morning
Saying hello to me before I went off to class
He never did that with anyone else
I’m here,
Half the floor cleared
And he hasn’t done much
The room feels colder now
I tell him this, but he doesn’t budge
He says, “Help me push the stuff into the crate.
There’s not enough space for the rest.”
I walk over and push down on the mound of balls
I hear laughter from first graders entering the cafeteria
On the other side of this wall
Tony’s heavy footsteps coming closer to me
His body hovers
There has to be something to break my fall
His breath hisses against my ear
His beard scratches my neck
His arms cage me in as he helps me push
I can feel something being pressed against
My lower back
He turns me around
Looks me dead in the eyes
As his hands roam under my shirt
Tracing the bottom of my training bra
His matches strike up against my skin
And I feel the fire
He knew I was cold, but I didn’t feel any warmer
His brown eyes turn gray smoke
No one else knows I’m in flames
He snarls,
“Aren’t you easy? Doesn’t take much
To keep you quiet.
I know you want this.
You’re a special little girl.
You deserve it.”
I keep pushing him away
But his grip tightens
I don’t remember what happened next
But I find myself walking out of the room
Before the door closes, I look behind me
One last time
The jingle of his keys
The corners of his lips upturn
Down the ramp I burn
I come back to class late
The teachers and yard duty wonder
Where I’ve been for the past two hours
My friend sitting next to me taps my shoulder
And asks why I don’t smell the same
“I thought it had only been thirty minutes…”
My voice shrivels and doesn’t let me finish
Part II – Maybe It’s Better If I Didn’t Know
It’s been a few weeks since
I know it wasn’t right,
But I can’t bring myself to say
He would do me wrong
My gut’s telling me it’s the latter
And it’s right
I hear the girl from homeroom
Talk to the teacher about
Some old movie she watched over the weekend
“There was this scene where
The girl’s grandfather molested her
In his car…”
“What does the word molested mean?”
They both slowly turn to me
When I ask the question
And they look at each other
With widened eyes
It seems like the rest of the school
Whispered about it
I feel the supervisors watching me
Everywhere I go
There is always a friend close by
No one wants me to be alone
But I don’t feel comfortable
I search up the word
Read the definition
My knees buckle
I stifle the cry
Biting at my knuckles
It’s of no use
I’m not sure if it’s better knowing
Or staying naive
He turned into a monster,
And they all knew before me
The fall leaves scrape against the asphalt
The birds chirp their mellow songs
The kids have fun playing basketball
How can the rest of the world move on
Like this doesn’t matter?
Part III – Spiraling
I don’t want to go to the restroom during class
The hallways will be empty
I will hear his truck speed through the corridor
And I can’t let him see me
“Another mental breakdown? Pretty on schedule if you ask me…”
I shake every time
My friends come up from behind
They ask me why
I can’t say anything
I don’t want them judging me
Like everyone else does
“Sounds like some hot hentai I watched the other day, want to see?”
The boys continue to undress me with their eyes
They never stop talking about
Whatever they think he did to me
It’s the yellow fever, but they don’t see the jaundice, just my thighs
“You should have known what he was going to do. It was pretty obvious”
“You wouldn’t be like this if you just said no.”
The voices during passing period always blame me
I have nowhere to go
There’s a reason why I stay quiet
Whatever I say is going through deaf ears
If they like what they want to see so much
I’m surprised they haven’t told me to go on a diet
So I walk through the school with my head low
I can’t be mad at them
It’s not something I would want to hear
either
Part IV – Cinematic Capsize
My orchestra class is held in that back room
I have to sit there with my viola, pretend to be fine
Every time I’m in there,
I’m only going back to the scene of the crime
I remember now
the loud click of the door locking shut,
As I left him there
I imagine the chalk outline
of what could have been my body
I don’t think I was meant to make it out of there
Alive
No one believes me anymore
They think I’m reaching for pity
Just some attention to bandage the wounds
Or was it that I’m the only tan girl in a sea of beige
Is a cry for help from a little Asian girl nothing to this city?
I see him in the nightmares
He never stops
He never leaves
In every single one, I can’t speak
So this is what becoming a woman is, I guess
The man only sees me for
The waist, the wrists, the crest of the neck
The breasts, the back, all the rest
To him, I don’t have a heart or mind anymore
You can’t say you haven’t seen it before
It’s all in the movies
Girl clings to her rare moment to shine
Boy couldn’t care less
He stares at her other pair of eyes
And of course,
She’s created from the magic of feverish dreams
Scripted to sign her life away to a man
That doesn’t know any better
Than to take what was never his
And make it look good
so he can forget her
After all, it’s just for the plot of love letters
I’m that girl from the screens
I’ve written my story
But his shadow is all I’ll ever be
I don’t want to be for him
I want to be for me
But if this be the only way I exist
I’d rather poke at my wrists
With my mechanical pencil
Pretend it’s a syringe to draw all my blood
He says he wants color
I don’t know what he wants, but I have this to offer
How ironic this writer use their own instrument
To draw herself into the heavenly mist
Part V – Take Care
I’m sitting across from the nice lady in her office
The empty pencil syringe sits on her desk
She asks me to show her the marks
I pull up my sleeve and the white etches
Beam from the fluorescent lights
She starts playing doctor
Writes a referral for the school psychologist
It’s lunch time, food tray in hand
I walk into another nice lady’s office
A light blue tissue box awaits the catharsis
Fifty minutes a week
I try to make her understand
What the last few years felt like
I eventually stopped making time for the visits
Not that I didn’t need it
But when you have the stares waiting to see you choke
Giving into the memory of Tony
Makes my throat hurt
I think my friends are starting to understand me
I’m getting better at not letting it consume me
The repaired ship swallows the bottle
Throws his words out to a salty sea
I’m okay here.
I’m okay.
I’m still here.
Still
Here
Part VI – Relapse
I’m not in middle school anymore
It’s been years since
I thought I’ve forgotten but
There’s always something around me
Craving to conjure up his ghost
And today, my mind lives in the past
I walk into my speech class early this morning
Biting on bleeding lips
She stops me before I put on some chapstick
I guess this is what I get for wearing my heart on my sleeve
She’s expecting an answer and I tell her everything
She says that she’ll lose her job
If she keeps my secrets
Picks up the phone
And tells the office ladies I’m on the way
So this is where I’ll be staying today
I pack my bag and drag myself out the door
The old white man dressed navy blue
Officer badge by his shirt pocket
Writes a new form
Slips it into Tony’s old folder
I’m not sure if this is the part where
I can say I’m safe now
He pulls out a recording box
Starts the interview
It’s the same thing
But it’s a bit easier to talk about now
Dad takes me home
Doesn’t understand why
I didn’t say anything sooner
Family first
He thinks I want to make us look cursed
“I didn’t think being quiet would hurt
You”
I say I want to take it to court,
He tells me to keep my mouth shut
I’m making things worse
“No one else will hear about this, you got me?
We will not have our lives eaten up by ABC 30.”
I’m sick, but that doesn’t make me crazy
Little did I know that Dad will no longer need to worry,
The DA on my case would never call me back
I’m at another cliffside
Ready to dive
And you have the nerve to call it a stunt
Something to make the masses gasp once
They see me in a pool of my own blood
How funny,
They throw me all the self help tissues,
But you won’t let me heal in an empty room
I see the light
The peace, the relief
I walk toward it
But she pulls me back
The little girl that’s stayed with me
She wants a happy ending to this story
So I’ll keep trying for her
For me
Part VII – A Sweet Revival
I don’t exist to entertain
I don’t exist for him to write over my name
It’s 2019
I’m better now
Must be the wellbutrin and lamotrigine
I’m packing boxes
to move somewhere 4 hours away
I’m in college now
The twelve year old me didn’t think she would see this day
She holds my hand through the hallways
My eyes flutter open
Metamorphosis
Everything is technicolor now
I write her between my lines
Whoever knows me will know her too
I can see
Blossoms grow from the cracks in my skin
It’s a garden,
A garden of a life waiting for me
The REVIVAL at UCSB 