Beneath the Stars

O.K. Mantz

She knows that rape is more than just “betray”—

Her mother lies there: raw and bruised and pained,

Her body aches, her scars are torn apart,

The demon hits her, breaks her frail heart.

And when she prayed, her tears with blood were stained,

Her guilt—more than a thousand tons they weigh.

Her fault—is all her parents have to say.

Then she gave birth below the stars—

And thus my body came from scars.

The daughter wept, and wished them far apart,

Her mother’s wounds she bore on her own back.

Her mother’s past was drowned with whips and wine—

That killed her smile, and dimmed her lustrous shine.

Her soul, once red, began to grow quite black

When Ma threw empty bottles at her heart.

Cut wrists—in hopes from this world to depart.

I wished that I was born on Mars—

I would not carry all these scars.

One friend she found, to stand through time and tide,

A love—but Cancer he could not defy.

He slowly whithered…with his final breath,

He cursed the Christ, and thus he welcomed death.

She asked: “was I then also born to die?”

No one would help her, all were filled with pride.

Who else, who here would stand along her side?

One friend, a lover, ‘neath the stars,

Who beauty saw, through ugly scars.

A bullet pierced her mother’s weary brain,

Who could not carry this cruel world alone.

The daughter found herself without escape;

In rage, she asked God “why must I be raped?”

It’s true, the Christ bore scars on flesh and bone,

But was he locked in life’s dishonest chain?

These ugly scars would prove to be her bane.

If all of us lie under stars,

Why, then, do I alone have scars?

As you now listen to memoirs,

And glance, with sadness, at the stars,

Your story, with my own, is ours—

There is much more to me than scars…