my rapists, the morning after

they probably woke in silence, something in their hearts gently amiss, but unable to place it. they probably washed their faces, scrubbed their teeth, and went to work.

the thin one must have pushed me out of his head, awaiting the next fantasy to release him from his quiet misery. for proof that he was a man, and this is what men did. the fat one must have grieved the ways of the world, rembering the powerlessness in my eyes. resigned in his own conviction that the world will always be unjust. that nobody cares.

if they met later in the evening, would they have talked about me? remembering my soft, hairless body, and my fierce hunger for love. the thin one would say “his eventual submission saved him from the agony of fighting.” the fat one would nod, lost in thought.

the thin one would have thought it a marvellous reason to have been rejected, that his dick was too big. he would feel like shiva, an agent of destruction, his weapon worshipped by his caste for the heirs it would bring one day, leaving the waste of a colonised uterus in its wake. the fat one would shake his head disapprovingly, thinking my father didn't raise me right.

a bottle of parachute coconut oil would sit in the corner, with its lofty ambitions of creating space where there was none. maybe they'd catfish another boy, who would travel a long distance with the same hunger, find out there were two, and neither the one in the grindr profile picture. they would say, “oh. that was his brother, sorry. but please come, we’ll have fun.”

and the boy reposts memes about gay men being the most adventurous lana del rey fans. so he would shrug it off. this was ‘the community’ after all.

they would muse over my insistence to only do them one at a time. the fat one would be proud of how he tried to calm down my ‘anxieties’. the thin one would get bored of talking about me.

the fat one probably thinks of me occasionally still. maybe the first time he sees his wife freeze under him, like the corpse i became on that mat. i hope he stops then, holds her in apology, and cries into her lap.

if the thin one could ever, even accidentally, remember my lifeless form- my pleas, and eventual resignation, i think he would kill himself. because he would think i did too.

i didn't though. i lived to write about it. i lived knowing what men could do for a few seconds of something they mistake for freedom. i lived weaponising what i knew, making men move like puppets of testosterone.

and i’m tired now.

they all go on to live their miserable lives. i hope they find their hunger is for love, not freedom. and i hope they find a love that shows them that. i hope they learn to trust time enough to wait with grace, and that sometimes, under the sun, space can bloom for you.