ThePoetry — ThePoets&ThePoetesses
TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains references to abuse.
The Poetry
“You are not a beater”
By Samantha Chiang
You are not a beater
I refuse to believe that one incident does a person make
You are not some mentally unstable guy in need of anger management
You are not someone who needs to assert his masculinity
You are gentle, you are kind, you are self assured
You are not a beater
You are not a beater
You never even laid that hand on me
At least not that time
Instead you just told me
That if that little white stick showed two lines, one line more than we wanted
You would throw me into a river
Love river
You told me that it couldn’t be true because you had your whole life ahead of you
So I took my fists and I beat my stomach every night
Bum bum bum
Pounding rhythmically to rid any chances of that rhythmic unborn heartbeat
And the raw red skin blistered and begged me to stop
But I would not stop
Because you were not a beater
I would beat for you
I wince with every step I take
When my friends ask I blow it off as an injury
Nobody asks further questions
Because they know you are not a beater
Never once do they stop to think that it may just be the perfect genius boy who doled out the injuries scattered across my legs
It had to have been the clumsy little girl
It couldn’t have been you
It wouldn’t have crossed a single mind
They all knew that
You
You were not
You were never
You would never be
A beater
But the black and blue on my back says otherwise
And when my mother sees it she asks me how I got it
My mother knows where I got it
I tell her I’ve been playing a little too much soccer
I tell her I’ve tripped and fallen
I tell her I got it battling the dragons and unicorns up in the sky
But my mother knows
I do not tell her though
So the bruise grows between my mother and I like the thorny bramble of some villainous fairytale
But it is alright
Because you are not a beater
You are not a beater
But that one day on the roof of our school
I may have had second thoughts
When I begged you to stay
And you told me to leave
When I clung to you like an adolescent clings onto the last fallen days of summer
Trying to inhale all there is to inhale, trying to do all that can be done, trying to see all that can be seen
Only to realize that summer has gone and the leaves have fallen
Leaving the trees barren
I never would have guessed that you would have pushed me
I never would have been able to imagine the soaring pain
I never could imagine it before you
You may not be a beater
But you beat the will out of me
ThePoets&ThePoetesses
“You are not a beater” by Samantha Chiang
I’m Samantha, a first-year English major with aspirations of pursuing the emphases of creative writing and literary theory. My ultimate goal in a professional capacity is to become a judge. In my spare time, I can be found reading, crafting and playing soccer. I have an enormous appreciation for poetry, both spoken and written, even if my own poetry pales in comparison to the greats. My favorite poem is “My November Guest” by Robert Frost. This poem is intended to be spoken, but I believe that its message still comes through in written form.
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