Trigger Warning

You don't understand
and they don't even work
     that way

There is no safe space
You can't make the space safe
You can't help save me
     from me

Because the word

     "rape"

isn't a trigger.
After all,
you never taught me to say
the words that would name
what you did to me

No, the smell of engine oil
the heat of the summer
and the touch of old wood
The sweat trickling down my back
as I pretended
     I was not there

My breath in my throat when
I finally gasped,
when I had to face facts and admit
that I was not really dead

That's the trigger
and how can you have a trigger warning
for being alive