Recoil

Sometimes the past touches you before anyone else does.

Poem:

I recoil...

not because you touched me,

but because of the person who did.

Your hand doesn’t hurt me.

It’s the memory that does.

It’s the way my body keeps score,

even when my mind pleads to forget.

I know the rules:

Be polite.

Smile.

Hug the "safe" people back.

Pretend it’s easy.

Pretend it’s nothing.

Pretend I’m fine.

Anything less feels like an insult you didn’t earn.

And God, I am so tired,

tired of folding myself smaller,

of smoothing over the ripples you can’t even see,

of carrying the weight of a hurt no one else knows.

But I lean in anyway,

even as my chest tightens,

even as my body screams for distance.

I force a smile,

stretch it over the raw places inside me,

like gauze too thin for the wound.

I pretend I don’t feel the sparks under my skin,

the way the air thickens in my throat,

the way the past grabs at me,

like hands that weren’t supposed to,

hands the world would tell me I should have wanted.

I carry a secret too heavy to say out loud,

because I know most of you wouldn’t even call it what it was.

You would call it love.

You would call it complicated.

You would call it anything but rape.

My body wasn’t mine then.

And if I’m honest,

it’s not really mine now either,

not when I have to smile and lean in and make sure you don’t feel rejected.

Not when your comfort still weighs more than mine.

It shouldn’t matter.

But it does.

And when you notice,

when I flinch, when I pull away too fast,

I laugh it off.

I tell you:

"Sorry, I'm not a hugger."

I take the blame,

To alleviate your assumptions

That I'm moving away from you.

But I see it anyway,

the flicker of confusion,

the pinch of judgment behind your eyes.

The silent question:

What’s wrong with her?

And I shrink.

stuffing the ache down where you can’t see it.

Because how dare I make you uncomfortable.

And how dare you to not even care why.

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This piece reimagined as a song using Suno (lyrics are mine).

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Lyrics:

Verse 1

I recoil—

not from you, but from the ghost in your place.

Your hand doesn’t burn,

but memory scorches like a hidden blaze.

My body holds the record, etched in bone,

while my mind begs—leave it alone.

So I follow the script:

Be sweet. Be polite.

Smile for the faces that never asked why,

make an excuse, make it sound right,

play the part, swallow the sigh.

Pre-Chorus

Every touch’s a test I didn’t choose,

a gamble I always lose.

Chest locked, breath bruised,

this is the cost of living with what I refused.

Chorus

I force a smile—gauze on a wound,

pretend the embers won’t rise too soon.

The air grows heavy, presses into my ribs,

the past grabs hold like the hands that did.

You'd call it love,

call it complicated,

call it blurred.

You'd call it anything but what occurred.

And I’m left holding silence like a blade,

watching my comfort get outweighed.

Verse 2

My body wasn’t mine back then—

and some days, it still isn’t now.

When your comfort is currency,

I pay without a sound.

Falter earns me puzzled looks,

I read your judgment like a book.

“Sorry, it's not you, it's me,” I lie,

to soften the recoil, to pacify.

Bridge

I feel it—

the glance, the sting, that silent what’s wrong with this girl?

And I cave in,

hide the damage where it won’t unfurl.

Because your ease was always worth more than mine,

I keep playing by the rules, and tell you it’s fine.

Final Chorus / Outro

I force a smile—gauze on a wound,

pretend the embers won’t rise too soon.

The air grows heavy, presses into my ribs,

the past grabs hold like the hands that did.

You'd call it love,

call it complicated,

call it blurred.

You'd call it anything but what occurred.

I stitch a grin across the fracture lines,

while history traces back up my spine.

You'd call it love, call it complicated,

but I know what it was—undebated.

And every time I lean in close,

I disappear a little more.

I recoil…

and no one sees the war.

---

Author's Note:

I wrote it because there are countless people walking through the world with a body that remembers what their voice never got to say.

For many survivors, trauma doesn’t announce itself with sirens. It hides in small, ordinary moments like a hug that should feel safe, a hand on your shoulder, a kiss you didn’t ask for but were told was affection. The world teaches us to protect other people’s comfort, even when they’re not the ones carrying the weight. So we smile. We laugh it off. We apologize for the instinct to pull away. We make ourselves small so no one has to confront the truth of what happened to us.

This poem, and the song it became, is about the quiet aftermath. The part no one sees. The war inside a body that learned fear too young and still tries to be polite about it. It’s about how trauma doesn’t always look like panic or screaming. Sometimes it looks like a smile. Sometimes it sounds like, “Sorry, I’m just not a hugger.” Sometimes it’s invisible but it is never imaginary.

If this piece feels familiar to you, I hope it reminds you that your reactions aren’t dramatic, broken, or too much. They are evidence of survival. Your body is not betraying you it’s protecting you. And you don’t owe anyone an explanation for the way you stay safe.

Some people will read this and understand immediately. Others never will. Either way, it deserved to be written.

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**Don’t worry, everything’s still free.

I’ve just decided to treat my writing a little more like busking.

There’s a tip jar out now, you can donate if something I’ve written ever stuck with you, but there’s zero pressure.

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From the cage,

Canary Vale 🪶

Poemsbycanary@gmail.com