Rape Poem Epilogue: for the Next One, Caitlin Lee-Hendricks

Rape Poem Epilogue: for the Next One

Caitlin Lee-Hendricks

Having sex with me is like losing your car keys. Like how you throw yourself

into the drivers’ seat. How you hold your breath when you swear you see something move

in your rearview mirror. Like yanking down the emergency brake on a hill. As if a stoplight after midnight:

a perpetual blinking yellow. Like swerving to the side when you see a near-dead deer

in the road. As if you are struggling through fog and going 70 in a rainstorm. Sex with me is smudged red. How

an ambulance darts past, a cop car pulls over the person behind you. Like how your stomach sinks

into the gas pedal. As if sliding on black ice: hydroplaning and knowing no matter

how many times you pump your breaks you’re still going to hurt the person in front

of you. As if you are waking up after it all and you’re the only one

not bleeding.

JUDGES’ NOTES

“Rape Poem Epilogue: for the Next One”

This poem’s linked similes build upon each other to say the unspeakable. The sentiment expressed radiates from the poem—that life is never the same after such a tragedy, and it impacts more than the victim or survivor. But that it tells this in such a vivid, imagistic way results in a true poetic success.

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