Atlantic City

 It stays with you even after you run more than a thousand miles to the other side of the country and swear you saw his face just now in the crowd.
 It stays with you and you question whether you’d go to the cops again. for a long time it wasn't something I would recommend. It was over 8 hours of hell repeating myself. I was exhausted, alone, left to sit there commando... I could go on but these lines are already too tmi.
 It stays with you so long you once made the date your pin number.
 It stays with you then a hashtag becomes a movement. You want to speak up and share. but mostly you just stay quiet and empathize in silence because it's not easy to go there.
 It stays with you
       until you write an ode to it’s memory 
       so you never have to repeat the story...

  
 Atlantic City
 it will always come down
 to whom you believe.
 in a he said, she said
 contest of wills,
 the public still tends to be quite naïve
 of who was right
 and what went wrong.
 as many stories exist
 as people to tell.
 every day, it seems
 another version comes along.
 half-assed at best, passed
 between those claiming to be in the know.
 personal friends of us all.
 like fools they fucked for gossip
 and still can’t get it right
 but I remember
 too, too well
 it was June
 and a party was on that night.
 we were all down at the local pub
 our private, personal club
 which always accepted new members
 fresh off the boat.
 it was the beginning
 of another summer,
 another endless party
 til labor day
 i had already found
 my first Irish cutie.
 we teased, tested
 and tasted the waters.
 everything was fine.
 everything was fun.
 it was supposed to be,
 but…
 he knows I know
 whose face I saw
 by the boardwalk light.
 he knows I know
 whose hand I felt
 rubbing my skin.
 he knows I know
 another saw him
 the one I was with
 the Irish cutie who caught a glimpse
 whom I haven’t seen since.
 he knows I know
 what really happened
 in that tiny hostel hotel
 while everyone slept
 and he crept
 in and out of rooms
 and what happened next
 and the day after that
 as my life was dragged
 to hell and back.
 verbally harassed
 mentally attacked
 “you’re a slut, a bitch”
 and such I cannot say.
 while he became the martyr.
 yeah, I heard how everybody
 shook his hand at the bar
 and groveled at his feet.
 gall filled me
 they didn’t believe.
 yet I had my friends,
 allies and the truth on my side
 plus, the courage to step forward and try.
 but is it enough
 as I lay scarred
 for the rest of my life
 because I slept with some guy
 and this one takes my presence as a personal invite.
 he had no right.
 I was with someone else,
 sleeping beside that sweet Irish cutie
 til he so rudely awakened me.
 that summer was never the same.
 this wasn’t how it was supposed to be
 but assault is never a pretty sight.
 it was my last summer!
 it was supposed to be fun and games
 an endless party til labor day.
 my last summer.
 funny, it still was…