Poems about more triggering topics. Please include warnings.

TW: hints at SA

I was little.

Too little to name it—

but little enough to know

that my pink shorts

shouldn’t have met my knees

while I was asleep.

Old enough to pretend

I didn’t feel it.

To keep my eyes closed

like silence could save me.

Like stillness could undo

what was being done.

I didn’t have the words—

just the weight.

The knowing.

The heat in my cheeks

that didn’t come from sunlight.

And after,

the world kept moving.

Cartoons still played.

Cereal still crunched.

No one noticed

that I flinched

when the door clicked shut.

They called me shy.

Sensitive.

Quiet.

But I was just

carrying too much

for someone so small.

And now,

years later,

I still sleep curled up

like I’m hiding something.

Because I am.

A moment.

A memory.

A wrong

Done so quietly

it almost passed as nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing.

It was me,

learning too early

what it means

to be afraid

in your own skin.