Cicada

Have you ever seen the metamorphosis of a cicada?

That's what it was like to leave the body behind,

To dissociate, become a shell.

Vacant, 

abandoned.

My back would crack,

split along the spine,

my essence would fall out backwards.

Squeezing and wriggling its way out

of the confines of betrayed skin -

at the mercy of invading hands

My wings are slick and tacky,

drying as they are exposed to the air,

filling out into brilliant opalescence.

Translucent paddles,

like oars to pull my way through the air

thick like water,

leaving my body to drown.

Hovering up high

I look down through God's indifferent gaze

he watches and doesn't intervene

from where he sits he can see

the hands that swarm my thighs.

My body left to inertia,

discarded,

in stillness.

Unwanted,

the whole situation unwanted.

His touch unwanted.

Every time she makes a cut

in the shadow where his hands had been

It's to, for at least a while, set me free.

Free from the incessant replay of sensation,

the echo of his vile caress.

Still felt today

though now I stay

inside this body that remembers.

It's been a long time since the last invasion

but invisible hands revisit.

I feel the pressure and warmth of sweaty palms

Sometimes I can't resist 

but to push imagined hands away.

Something I could never do back then,

for the shell once empty could never move, 

that’s why I must remain 

within the walls of wounded flesh.

I can't decide if I am proud that I defend myself 

even against memory or

am I disturbed that these somatic flashbacks

are so real that I react to mere recollection. 

But if I let the invisible molesting wave to crash over me 

And if I were to remain inert,

I'd be just the same as I ever was,

the way I never wanted to be

 Then

or ever again.