A long time ago there was a thread asking what if felt like to be a survivor. A lot of people gave their answers, all of them heartfelt, all of them painful. But there was one answer that really struck me, as it struck others. It was a poem that expressed how I, and many others truly felt.

Trigger Warning
This post will talk about sexual abuse and rape.

Almost on instinct I saved the poem. I knew I would keep coming back to it, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose it. The true author is lost to time, as is the original reddit post, so we don’t even have a user name for attribution.

But I held onto it all this time. While it doesn’t specifically express my situation, it expresses how I feel. It expresses how many people feel, in a way that only poetry can. I’ve kept this poem to myself for over a decade, but today I’ve decided to share it again, to preserve it.

I Want Him

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I want him to be walking around in a public place, like a supermarket, and suddenly recognise what he did and dissolve into panicked tears.
I want him to lie awake at night and spend hours replaying that scene, wishing through choking, pathetic sobs that he could change the ending.
I want him to be terrified of being around other men because it might happen again.
I want him to be so deeply ashamed of himself, that he truly believes his own parents would stop loving him if they knew the truth.
I want him to get the cold sweats and shakes whenever someone mentions the word “rape”.

I want him to look at other people who are happy, who have happy, pleasurable sexual relationships, and feel broken.
I want him to feel enraged when someone spouts off “just world” philosophy bullshit.
I want him to avoid mirrors because he can’t stand to look at himself.
I want him to spend countless nights getting drunk so he’ll have courage to commit suicide, only to realize that’s he’s a coward. (Just like he already knew.)
I want him to spend 15 minutes of every hour in the handicap bathroom at work trying to calm himself down.
I want him to feel inescapable panic about half the time he has sex for years after the fact.
I want him to think about my face anytime they’re feeling sexual pleasure, getting naked, or masturbating, and I want that image to crush any hope of arousal.

I want him to explain to a significant other, through hysterics, exactly what happened that day.
I want him to fear being out in public because it feels that the truth of that experience is written on his face.
I want him to spend years in therapy.
I want people to tell him that his pain is not a big deal and that he should just stop thinking about that day.
Because honestly, what is it really helping?

I want him to feel like I know him better than anyone ever could because I was there.
I know what he looks like when he rapes someone.
I want him to feel like I’m inside him all the time, mocking him for every failure, panic attack, and sick day.
I want him to believe that it’s always going to feel like this.
I want him to feel like trash. Actual use-and-throw away- trash.
I want him to feel angry and have no outlet except his own body.
I want him to feel weak and useless.
I want him to feel DEFINED by this experience.
I want him to feel like a monster.

I want him to feel like me…

Anon

This is a poem that has always been both cathartic and a source of great sadness. It’s a reminder that I am not alone and that there are others out there who understand some of the things I have been through. But it’s also a reminder that others have gone through similar things to what I have, that there will always be monsters that haunt us, and that these things will keep happening.