you still think you can run

​I am seventeen
it is nineteen ninety something

I am in a room
full of teenage boys
my boyfriend
who has brought me here
treats me like a pretty chair

I am from Maine
this is Virginia Beach
one of his friends
has just died in a gang shooting

it is my first funeral
an open casket
I watch his mother cry
as she holds on to
his lifeless body

I wear a navy blue dress
I cling to my boyfriend
who brushes me away 
like a cobweb

now I am here
with all these boys
I don't know
they seem like men
​so much bigger than me
 passing around a blunt
laughing when I cough

we are all drinking
but I don't know what
I want to leave
because all I can see
is the dead boy
with his bullet wounds
standing in the corner
​
in the distance
I hear his mother crying
I tug on my boyfriend's shirt
he swats me away
while his friends take
turns talking about 
raping me while I am this high

I leave and go sit in the car
push on the car horn so hard
it won't turn off
my boyfriend comes out
so worried about his car
I cry in the passenger seat

his friends come out
shake their heads
and talk about me
as if I am already gone

she is beautiful 
but crazy
they laugh
while I cry

the dead boy with bullet wounds
holds me 
hushes me 
while my boyfriend
screams at me in the car
for ruining his car

I am so far away from home
I don't have a home
I sleep on the floor
in his mom's house
she tells me how his father
abused her
she takes my side for once

in a blink
I see his future
he has twins
but not with me
I decide to leave him
but it takes me another year

the dead boy blows me kisses
while I lie awake
remembering a room filled
with smoke
guys talking
about ass raping me
while my boyfriend laughed

I hear my boyfriend in the other room
complaining loudly
about what a bitch I am
for causing a scene
in front of his friends

now its just the dead boy
and me
he got shot from behind
he tells me 
you never see it coming
but when it hits you
you still think you 
can run

his hands are just vapor
but they are still hands
reaching out to me
and I am so lonely
so scared

sometimes
touching each other's wounds
is enough to get by