The Last Time We Touch

It makes him a man, he says,

the words falling

out of his mouth and

onto me.

I say nothing.

I take him in, searching

the hesitant wrinkles

in his skin, clutching

his defensive shoulders

covered in stretch marks

of an unforgiving childhood.

Is it still rape if you let it happen?

I send my insides

to the quiet place where men

whisper and women smile.

It’s better there. I can’t feel

his breath or

the names he calls me

in the dark. He barks them

over and over and

somewhere in the distance

a girl runs from the shots

but I don’t hear a thing.