A Binding Love

[tectak]

Fear brought me here; he binds my hands, my chest, my thoughts.
The man who shares me holds  the cords that tighten,
choke and keep me tied; but who am I? My soul, a broken glaze
on  dull and blood-crazed sunken eyes, I do not recognise.

If ever light was bright enough for you to glance in guilt
upon my face (whilst in your  lustful, thrusting throws),
or if I cried because my breasts were aching,
or if I screamed because you tore those parts of me
where tender touch should float me into warming sea
of gentle waves...would you then think you loved me?

It is too late. I have no secret places anymore.
If in some darkened, piss-filled room (where you, too, are unknown),
you hear my given name; then ask for me. I will be here.
I do not know what I have left to sell or what you want from me.
The fear that binds me shivers and confines me...
but you are free to think that you are loved.

Extract from report "Sex Markets on Teesside, 2013" Commissioned by Northern Rock Foundation.
"For example, one agency said of a client “she would get beaten up regularly”, another said “there is always reports of violence, like sex workers being strangled, left for dead, in a coma for three weeks”. "

tectak2015

I really enjoy the context of what you're writing about, but I feel like there are too many abstractions for such a visceral experience. I would love to know more about the physical sensations that are being experienced here. I think theres a way to express reactions through the wording of explanation of these experiences without leaving it abstract. I want to know what that rope feels like, the sensation of being choked. I had a professor once tell me you need to earn your abstractions and I think there are some that would work wonderfully here if only there was a bit more specificity. Your opening is strong, that's for sure. I'm immediately captivated by what's happening and I'm eager to know more. I think you're on the right track in the second stanza, where the poem because a bit closer to explaining the physical sensations of the experience. If you can tighten that and apply it to the rest of the poem, I think you've got something very strong.

Hi Isaba,
I note a sense of dashed expectations in your critique and must admit to guilty as charged. There are no mitigating circumstances because this is quintessentially a piece of veracity verse...that is to say it was written to "tell" an individual's story, from that perspective. The teller, I decided, would be far more likely to question the motivations of her antagonists than to go through a painful reconstruction of her thoughts on just how agonising was the rope, rape or recidivist's roughness. It is, then, a simple self analysis of just how a hopeless situation brings on paralysis of thinking and, not unnaturally, aquiescence to the extent of acceptance. The small voice in her head is thinking the thoughts. They are small thoughts...my kind of thoughts.
Nonetheless, you make a case for more extensive analysis of this and many other's plight...but that would involve big thoughts and I do not have the knowledge to walk in those shoes.
Perhaps you do....?
Best,
tectak