The classroom was silent

Murmurs like crickets hid snide remarks

I knew the answer

But I had no voice

 

Whimpering I whispered the answer to the boy in front of me

The teacher acknowledged my action

He begged me to speak up

I only ever spoke if I knew the answer

 

My silence was bought in the fifth grade

After my pride was shattered in fourth grade

 

I learned how to watch

My voice silenced

And my eyes glazed

 

My hands shake

And my body gets cold

I learned how to lie

 

I felt like dying

But that wasn’t the first time

I’d always felt that way

 

But it’s what she did to me

That’s when I changed

No longer could I pretend

I knew I was broken

I learned I was worthless

 

No longer was I pure

I will never again be innocent

My voice stolen by her slithering tongue

All care ripped by her wandering hands

 

She became my teacher in the night

I blocked all memory

Until it flooded back

A new lesson to be learned:

I hated myself

 

I let myself be violated

I was weak

I was young

She was my friend

 

I learned so much that day

But it was a lesson I have to relive all the time

The scars on my body constantly remind me

I am broken

 

My hand sinks below the desk

I don’t know the answer

They expect too much of me

 

Rubbing my thumb across my arm

Nails dig into flesh

Skin pushed aside

Blood bubbling at the surface

 

I learned a new escape

No one sees my marks

No one sees me eat

 

She taught me that

If I don’t eat

No one will know

She showed me how to enact pain

 

I still live for her

I hate myself

Because I still call her friend

She was my everything

When my world meant nothing

 

I learned so much

And yet

I have so much more to do

 

I learned that I don’t care

And that makes me cool

My apathy for the world

Not a fuck given attitude

Not enough energy to acknowledge their hate

 

That’s what I learned from her

But there was so much more I learned from him

 

His silver tongue placing words in mine

Threatening to end his life and ruin me

 

I had no one

I sought release

But I couldn’t tell him

the last lips I kissed ruined me

 

he wouldn’t understand

I couldn’t comprehend

It was a lost memory

Just a lingering feeling

A sinking pit

 

We were kids

I will always be a child

Some part of me will never grow past that moment

I feel her hands

I taste her breath

 

She taught me not to care

He taught me no one else would

 

I’d like to say these are my only teachers

But fate had other plans for me

I was strong

But life soon changed that

 

I learned how weak I am

My skin fragile

Bones brittle

With age nothing more but a shell

 

I stopped going to class

My voice gone

My hand shattered

All hope lost

 

Tears streamed my face

No one saw my pain

I tried to tell them

They refused to hear me

 

I learned I was on my own

No one would know my pain

No one could truly understand

 

My teacher is rape

My question is if I had the power to stop it

My task to decide if I am a survivor or victim

My thesis: do I care

 

The paper is due at the end of my life

A written masterpiece of all the shit

I’ve endured too often

And yet so little bother to see

 

I sit in the back

Now college lectures fill my head

At this point

My first teacher has only laid way for others

 

I learned not to like myself

My body is nothing but scars for others

My being is just an object to be used

I learned that I don’t care about myself

 

I know it’s horrid

But that’s what she taught me

Whilst laying under her bed

In fourth grade

No more than ten

I learned I would be nothing more than hers

 

I became her classroom

She explored my body

And I fell silent

No one knew the answer

So she sought possibilities

 

The world became my classroom

Why me

Why didn’t I remember

Why don’t I stop it

 

I became the world’s classroom

I no longer wanted to be pure

I didn’t want the last hands on me to be hers

I didn’t want to taste her tongue any longer

I couldn’t handle being hers

 

But I felt cold

Love felt numb

She was my friend

The classroom fell silent

 

There was nothing in my world

No wonder in the wind

No splendor in the sea

His threat of death killed me

 

I lived in my head

I was my classroom

Learning my limits

Breaking my boundaries

Thinking unspeakable truths

How easy all this could go away

 

But I’d still die at their hand

And I couldn’t have that

No, I had to live

To teach others

To show them to be strong

That they may not be like me

Victim, survivor, hell

 

They should be free

Class is out of session

But lessons echo between my ears

His lies of devotion

Her claims of friendship

All the receipt of love

And all the hate I’ve grown within me

 

I no longer listen to the negativity

No longer can I learn

What it means to trust

How it feels to love

 

Now loneliness is my teacher

It attempts to show me beauty

it holds me close

wrapping me in a cold embrace

 

together we found depression

who shows me true despair

she was not my demon

but she helped me free them

he was no monster but he helped me find one

 

depression has always been my mentor

but the agents of chaos

it brought weren’t always in my head

while the destructive voices

answer the beckon call

the agents of chaos

are classmates who don’t learn

they use and abuse

they force smiles and laughter

when all I can do is exist

 

now I wait for death to be my new teacher

he will show me how it will be alright

in the end he shall be my master

me an apprentice in his skillful ways

and then maybe I can finally learn peace