She Said. He Said.
A Poem
She was fourteen years old
with braces
and leggings on,
she had more guys friends
than girlfriends
and she was outgoing.
She said he touched her when they
played basketball,
and he left a bruise
when he pinned her
up against a wall.
It was dark and red
and purple for days to come.
He tried to shove his hands
down the waistband
of her tights.
But she pulled away
just in time.
But he still grabbed her bottom,
and clenched her thigh.
He said he didn’t do that,
she wasn’t the first girl,
and yet the
Navy Court believed that
nineteen-year-old naval cadet.
After all he had dreams of
going for the Australian Navy,
“such allegations,” he said
“could destroy my future”.
She was fifteen years old
when she had lost her virginity,
on the floor
of her army cadet boyfriend’s bedroom.
His parents downstairs,
he was high.
She was too scared to scream or shout.
She said as soon as her back was turned,
he pulled the condom off
and went inside her
and finished.
He said this never happened
and that they
never had sex.
She said she had gotten into a fight
with him and that
he shoved her into a table
when he found out
she could’ve been pregnant.
But he said that “I’m a changed man”
and that “this never happened”
And if it did, he didn’t mean it.
She said she bled for days and
refused to have sex for two years.
She was eighteen
and he was twenty,
her friends said that there was a
house party
just a few blokes away
from her apartment.
He made her drinks, she said
and he made her sit on his lap.
While she dozed off, his hands
slipping beneath her skirt,
shifting her underwear to one side.
The last thing she remembers
was letting him use her bathroom,
as she took off her shoes and
lay on the bed.
She said she felt the weight of his body
on top of her,
removing her singlet
and her skirt
and sliding off her black underwear.
She said to him ‘stop, it hurts’
but he didn’t listen.
She couldn’t fight him,
she was tired.
It was as though she was
slipping in and out
of being
alive and unconcious.
He said to her ‘good night’ and
left to join his mates.
He put on his clothes, and simply
acted like it was
nothing.
She lay in bed crying and in pain.
For weeks,
months,
and years on end.
He said this never happened.
She said this did.
But they always believed him more
than they ever did
with her.
