The Improvable Victim

They want me radiant with forgiveness.

Washed in the pale bath of perspective.

They want me

measured, tempered—

an elegant witness to my own undoing.

But I am earnest.

I am not improving.

I am the thing that happened.

And that makes them shift in their shoes.

They tell me:

Reframe it.

Rethink it.

Relive it with more compassion for him this time.

As if the story is clay

and my body was not already shaped by his hands.

I am tired of the gospel of benefit.

The prayers for closure.

The hushed advice:

He’s moved on. So should you.

They touch my shoulder

like I am an appliance

they wish would power off.

They say healing,

but they mean forgetting.

They say peace,

but they mean obedience.

They confuse my survival

with strategy.

My refusal

with grudge.

My trembling

with performance.

Because I am not improving.

Because I do not speak in neutral tones.

Because I do not end my sentences with smiles.

They want the victim who nods

when they offer her his name.

They want her to bless the altar

they built around his image.

To curtsy

to the memory

of the man who climbed inside her life

and left his fingerprints

on every threshold.

But I am earnest.

I am still bleeding in metaphor.

I am the myth they could not burn quiet.

I am the pitiful proof

that the system works

exactly as intended.

They crown him with doubt.

They dress me in hysteria.

They call me unbecoming

for becoming exactly what they made.

I tried to tell the truth.

I did.

It grew teeth in their hands.

So they named it something else—

Dramatic.

Sad.

Complicated.

But it wasn’t.

It was rape.

It was trust made meat.

It was a child holding up her wreckage

and being told

she had simply misread the map.

I am not misreading it now.

I see the country of harm clearly.

I know its rivers.

I know its gatekeepers.

I know how they give the abuser a house

and the victim a boot

and then ask her

why she’s so far from home.