" MUTANT BLAZON

My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.
To look at them will mean that I go blind.
His mouth beside my ear—they form a gun.
Each breath: a bullet targeting my mind.

My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.
His throat: a fist to silence mine designed.
His reason: a ventriloquist’s illusion.
No tenor in the end could hearing find.

My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—
Too close for any vessel with a mind.
Survive or get to die—that is the question.
No longer have I any will to mind.

My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—
Not dead, not living, neither keen nor blind;
A daily haunting; memory rebegun;
Disaster in some future undivined.

I write, rewrite, a “sonnet” about rape
To hunt that voice I wish I could escape. "

― Sheila Heti , The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018