Kristen Rapp
Two Rooms at 3am
I hold you. I beg, I rock, I bounce, I sing, and yet
you wail, bucking against the silence of the night.
I will give you anything for your silence -
a cradle of silk, the milk of a mother
who might soothe you better
than I can with my deflated body.
On this night, I see myself free.
I feel that pull to leave you here
and drift outside to where my lungs
suck in the frosted air and I breathe, I breathe,
a doe or bird or beast
panting on this dark suburban street.
Here, I am alone, open, boundless -
the woman I knew before I met you
in that room of antiseptic and blood. In that room
where you first wailed, bursting into night
like a thunderclap, or maybe
a summer rain, landing soft and warm on my chest.
In that room where I held you, soothed you, breathed you in,
your legs still curled to fit
your first home.
you wail, bucking against the silence of the night.
I will give you anything for your silence -
a cradle of silk, the milk of a mother
who might soothe you better
than I can with my deflated body.
On this night, I see myself free.
I feel that pull to leave you here
and drift outside to where my lungs
suck in the frosted air and I breathe, I breathe,
a doe or bird or beast
panting on this dark suburban street.
Here, I am alone, open, boundless -
the woman I knew before I met you
in that room of antiseptic and blood. In that room
where you first wailed, bursting into night
like a thunderclap, or maybe
a summer rain, landing soft and warm on my chest.
In that room where I held you, soothed you, breathed you in,
your legs still curled to fit
your first home.
lessons on survival
When threatened, the Virginia Opossum collapses into a limp posture that so closely mimics death, even the most aggressive coyote becomes bored with the flaccid creature and skulks on. Most predators won’t hunt a seemingly dead thing, won’t continue to wound a body that has given up—unless the predator is human. Still, we like to think ourselves benevolent. When I was a kid, we adopted a rescue dog that flopped onto her back whenever a new man entered the house, tail sprung like a whip that tossed the lower half of her body side to side against cold kitchen tile, ears tucked as if to plead for mercy. We talked often about the day we brought her home from the shelter, how she showed us her belly and we thought it so sweet, mistaking her terror for affection. It strikes me this is the same defense a jury often finds most convincing, the convenience of mistaking a woman frozen on her back for a whore bidding for attention. Why didn’t you fight? Run? Bite off his dick? Questions that feel impossible to answer unless you try to see her as an animal surviving the best way she knows how. Because, as most women come to understand, the world will more readily empathize with an animal
than believe us.
than believe us.
nice girls
I don’t know when I learned that loving men is a task
that every girl must bear until it starts to hurt less.
Maybe all the times they called my body a fruit to be peeled,
popped, split apart, a juicy thing to chew into a tasteless
pulp. Like at twelve when my friends and I were catcalled from a car
while we belted Lady Marmalade into the night, barefoot on bikes,
pretending we got the innuendo. Or at fifteen when the
man on the boardwalk whispered exactly what he’d like to do
to my body, and I thought this must be flirting so I smiled
because I was a nice girl. Doe-eyed. A peach. Primed
for those little deaths that happen on a bed so I become
one of those women who wears her body like an unwanted guest.
Like the women I learned from, the one who told me it hurts
men to stop once they get going, that my refusal to hurt
was an act of cruelty. Keep trying, she said. It’ll get better.
Just act like you want those boys with the fumbling hands,
those men who bark from car windows,
their eyes searching for some part of you to keep.
Until, one day, you’re older. One day, you start to feel something
like a mother sprout from your core, start to feel her bloom
her arms around that spot under your ribs where you hid
that girl, the one just trying to be good.
You hear that mother whisper
Oh honey, you deserved better.
We all did.
that every girl must bear until it starts to hurt less.
Maybe all the times they called my body a fruit to be peeled,
popped, split apart, a juicy thing to chew into a tasteless
pulp. Like at twelve when my friends and I were catcalled from a car
while we belted Lady Marmalade into the night, barefoot on bikes,
pretending we got the innuendo. Or at fifteen when the
man on the boardwalk whispered exactly what he’d like to do
to my body, and I thought this must be flirting so I smiled
because I was a nice girl. Doe-eyed. A peach. Primed
for those little deaths that happen on a bed so I become
one of those women who wears her body like an unwanted guest.
Like the women I learned from, the one who told me it hurts
men to stop once they get going, that my refusal to hurt
was an act of cruelty. Keep trying, she said. It’ll get better.
Just act like you want those boys with the fumbling hands,
those men who bark from car windows,
their eyes searching for some part of you to keep.
Until, one day, you’re older. One day, you start to feel something
like a mother sprout from your core, start to feel her bloom
her arms around that spot under your ribs where you hid
that girl, the one just trying to be good.
You hear that mother whisper
Oh honey, you deserved better.
We all did.
Kristen Rapp (she/her) is a poet and sociologist living in Roanoke, Virginia. Her poetry explores themes of motherhood, queer identity, feminism, and politics. Kristen’s poems have appeared in ONE ART, the North Meridian Review, and elsewhere. She lives with her wife, her two sons, and one mentally unstable cat. You can find her on Instagram @kris.rapp.poetry.
