“18”

about our experiences at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD

I was only 18 when you lost me
it was more than just a flesh wound
I had just lost my father, it was second semester
and everyone there was different, more liberal or
left leaning than me
alcoholics alone in their dorms, trying to wash
away their sins and praying for whiskey and the pulsing of drums to absolve them.

they talked about God as though he were just
another thing to dismantle, unfathomable to
my sheltered, rubbed raw mind
and you dashed me open like I was an egg,
forgotten and left over after breakfast,
carelessly tossed over the railing
you mishandled all of me
when my friends told you that the same boy
who'd used me up with empty promises
and then discarded me like I was nothing
had done it to at least 4 other women,
you did nothing, only sat there on your pedestal
on your impenetrable hill, and allowed him to
continue.
I learned about it all and I never forgave you
and I wanted to kill him.
I was only 18.

I was only 18 when I became a corporeal ghost
barely breathing
barely eating, barely getting out of bed
haunted by the boy who'd raped me
haunted by my father's death
haunted by the fact that you'd still allow him
to share these halls with my friends.
haunted by the gaping void my life had become
see, my friends talked about God and saints
like they were dead. Little did they know that
I was becoming one of the bodies. all because you refused
to listen.
I was only 18.

I was only 18 when you saw me slipping away
and still you demanded more, more blood from
an already fragile stone. all the help you gave
only made it worse.
I'm still finding pieces of myself in the dark 10
years later. I still grieve for all the time I lost.
how foolish of me to think that this was home.
how could I have known any better?
I was, after all, only 18...

-Allēna 12/7/2025

#coercion #cptsd #dvsurvivor #MarylandCollege #ourpoetry #stjohnscollegeannapolis