Back like the space between my legs. Bitten. He left bruises, I turned onto my stomach so I wouldn’t have to see the pale look in his eyes. He said he hated people like me. When he reached too deep and hooked an old bruise, I realized I’d just gone over just to hurt myself. Later that week, I begged the universe for a sign not to return, passing by a company with STP in the name, then kept going. You have no idea what I dreamed about down those twisting roads. 70 in a 30, only strawberry jelly and Excedrin in my stomach, I ran towards and away. There were no streetlamps. I passed coyotes, lone dogs with curling white tales, a man with a blue lantern either looking for himself or for his pets, it wasn’t clear which. I knew better than to stop. Later when I was trying to sleep, I feared men in my room, I heard coyotes downstairs calling the names of my family. Come outside, won’t you? Don’t do this. He told me later it sounded like I enjoyed it. I didn’t know how to explain I was singing to mask the pain. The pain was sharp and wet; I thought I was bleeding all over the bed. (Memory: telling my parents I was sick, only to be ignored, only to later be admitted to the hospital for blood loss. I have spent my entire life trying to recreate wounds. I hold them in my hands like fleshy marbles. See? What happened to me must be real, I hear proof, I am scar.) Earlier, in electric blue light, the man lifted dumbbells. Flexed muscle. Told me I had none because I was a girl. What might happen if he brought weight the center of my forehead. If concussed, remember rape? Stupid question: body knows. In the forest, the women are trying their best. I tell them what happened; they throw identity into my eye socket. Ask when I’ll stop hurting. Harming. I fall asleep behind my eyes. Sunken deep behind the flesh of my body, my true self was grabbed by the ankle. Draggy, draggy. We are in a sink hole more than a decade ago. I miss ties. You can’t save me. He said, wearing a dress again? At night, I play dress up. I am a doll pretending to be a woman hoping a man won’t rip at the flesh on my thighs. He does. Tells me he has to have me. Tugs the strings on my dress and I am a puppet. Let them do whatever they want, as long as they don’t tell me, he said, and I dissociated at his closet doors, I wished for a monster to kill me. Why do we never ask for saviors? Because in order for someone else to save you, they have to first believe what you’re going through is real. I call back the voice of another possessed woman. Just kill me, she begged, and the bear let her live and used her up. The next morning, one of the women asks how I’m doing. I pretend to be in my body, eating one piece of toast over the course of sixteen hours. Does she know every second on the clock I think of food? Does she know I dream of my skin being draped across his bed like a cloak. I cried on the way home. I convinced myself I wasn’t real. If I had to choose between bears or men, I would choose snakes. Better to be harmed one last time with a bite than to recall all the times my body was grabbed to shreds as the bear, no sorry I mean man, who asked me to go in a nature walk, who claimed I would be safe, who said he loved plants and “wasn’t into killing women,” and therefore wouldn’t kill me, closed his eyes and went for my neck, despite, despite, despite.