When I was 10,
we lived in a neighborhood that was always under construction
My parents installed an alarm just in case anything were to ever go awry
They set up the defenses that should have been indestructible
But there was this one day that I ended my walk from the bus stop
to my place of safety by entering a house that didn’t sound an alarm
to footsteps in the doorway
The batteries were just dead
Before I allowed myself to indulge in an hour
of mind-rotting after school specials,
I checked every room in the house for intruders
I have always been cautious like that
I told my parents the alarm batteries needed replacement
but I never told them about how I checked the room
we kept our water softener in
to make sure there wasn’t anyone
dwelling where they shouldn’t have been
I tried to write an essay one time
comparing the sexual assault
I endured the august before my senior year
to my house getting broken into
I talked about being brave in the aftermath of a tragedy
After pouring all my blood and half-assed tears into that paper,
I received a C- and a try again
It didn’t connect, it didn’t make sense, and my metaphors were confusing
I think I tried too hard
to make the trauma a metaphor
instead of emphasizing the reality:
my own personal home
that I had been inhabiting for seventeen years
had genuinely been broken into
And the alarm didn’t sound
And that didn’t feel brave
I think all I did in that sham of an essay
was convince my teacher I was a coward
I talked to her about it once
I think she may have suspected that my batteries were dead
Either they were dead the evening I endured my attack
or I had just chosen to brush off the persistent ringing of panic
that was sounding in the air
because it sounded too much like my anxiety
I’d always pushed my gut feelings away
so I could continue to live without fear of going outside
Some instincts you just had to choose to ignore
I chose to ignore the wrong one
I chalked up the burrowing feeling
that had made its home in my stomach that night
in the glow of that artificial light to simply being nervous
So I turned off the alarm
and I let him kiss me
There’s two glaring repercussions
that being sexually assaulted has produced
I can’t look at lava lamps
And I can’t end poems about you
Lava lamps remind me of your bedroom
I can’t end poems because that would mean that I have closure
That you’re gone
That the alarms are intact
But I still have a creeping suspicion
that you could be hiding behind my water softener
Sarah Kersey is a sophomore at Gonzaga University who aims to enter the literary world. She is passionate about writing poetry, reading good books, taking photos, and advocating for awareness regarding social issues.