They say men do not cry.
But I have.
In showers so hot they could boil shame,
in cars parked in shadowed lots,
in the tight corners of dreams
where thirteen never left me.
They say boys cannot be victims.
That if a man is touched,
he must have wanted it.
That a man cannot be broken
unless he lets himself be.
I want to scream at them:
I was thirteen.
Thirteen.
All legs and unsure hands,
just learning how to be in my skin.
My cousin—older, trusted—
offered a movie, a couch,
and took from me the right
to be a child.
He did not ask.
He just did.
And I froze—
not like in the movies.
There was no fight.
Only confusion.
Only skin that did not belong to me anymore.
I was told to get over it.
Boys will be boys.
Family is family.
Do not wreck a name for a moment you barely remember.
But I remember everything.
The weight of him.
The silence that followed.
The way my world split
and no one noticed.
Then came nineteen.
A college roommate—
someone who laughed with me,
talked dreams,
shared frozen pizza at 2 a.m.
I drank too much.
He saw it.
He counted on it.
I woke up to hands where they should never be.
To pain I could not locate,
except it was everywhere.
And again—
silence.
Because how do you tell a world
that says you’re lucky
if someone wants you?
That you were raped
by a friend,
a man,
a peer?
What courtroom would hear me without smirking?
What jury would not call it confusion,
miscommunication,
a misunderstanding?
It was a violation.
It was a theft.
It was not unclear.
And I bled,
internally,
for years.
And then—
fifty-six.
After healing.
After therapy.
After building something out of wreckage.
I trusted again.
Let a friend into my life,
into my grief,
into the fragile, precious room I had walled off with care.
I let him in.
And he took that
as permission
to take the rest.
It was not violent,
not fast,
not like the other two.
It was betrayal wrapped in softness.
It was coercion wearing kindness.
It was “you owe me” whispered after holding me while I cried.
They never talk about that kind of rape.
The kind that comes after trust.
The kind that comes from someone who knows your wounds
and cuts anyway.
I still do not have the words.
Only the knowing.
The awful, burning knowing
that even now,
I will be doubted
more than he will be blamed.
This is what survival looks like
when you wear the wrong skin
for sympathy.
When masculinity is measured
by your silence,
your denial,
your ability to laugh it off.
I am done laughing.
I am done burying these years
like they were mistakes
instead of assaults.
Because I was thirteen.
Because I was nineteen.
Because I was fifty-six.
And every time,
someone crossed a line
they swore they would never touch.
Every time,
I was left to gather
what they scattered.
To walk out into the world
as if I had not just been turned inside out.
I am speaking now—
not for pity,
but for power.
For every man who has been told
he must have enjoyed it.
For every boy who learned to shut up
instead of speak up.
For every adult survivor
who still chokes on the word “victim”
like it is a mouthful of shame.
You are not weak.
You are not complicit.
You are not broken.
You are not alone.
One in six.
That is what the studies say.
But studies are cold,
and stories are warm and wet with truth.
So here is mine.
Three times assaulted.
Three times silenced.
But now—
one voice.
Unflinching.
Unashamed.
Unfinished.
I live with scars.
But I live.
I reclaim.
I teach.
I speak.
Because boys get raped.
Because men get hurt.
Because survivors wear every kind of face,
and I will not be quiet
while others bleed in silence.
This is for the boys who flinch in locker rooms.
For the men who drink instead of feel.
For the ones who never told anyone—
not even themselves.
You are not what they did.
You are what you survive.
You are the poem
they never thought you would write.
And me?
I am still here.
Thirteen.
Nineteen.
Fifty-six.
Still healing.
Still breathing.
Still mine.
