"Silver Linings" and "If I Had Known Then"

Silver Linings

I have been lectured for decades
that I should view the glass
half-full,
look for the silver linings,
and "think positive"
 
sure, but of course.....
 
hey, do you remember how fast and far
I could run,
and how I set records and won medals?
 
that was the silver lining I got
from having to outrun boy bullies
who pummeled my much-smaller body,
held me down and spit on me,
and made sure they hit me
where the bruises did not show
 
my early training consisted of running away
as fast as I could,
all while screaming as loudly as possible
 
the scream-run interval training
has yet to be adopted
by the US Olympic track team,
but I imagine any day now it will be
 
it sure helped me later in life,
several times in fact,
so I did not become
another victim
of the rapist
who never got jail time,
or the rapist who was believed
over the victim,
or the rapist who only got a slap on the wrist
because "why were you walking home
late at night in that dress.....?"
 
run and scream
run and scream
run and scream;
if you run and scream
fast and loud enough,
maybe, just maybe,
you won't get raped
 
such a silver lining;
I hope everyone is enjoying
my take on the glass half-full
 
and did I mention the silver lining now?
that although I can no longer run and scream
due to illness
that pains me to no end
 
the illness is so strong,
that no big man,
no supposed "bad neighborhood",
no drive-by shooter,
no threat of being stabbed,
no anything whatsoever,
 
will ever ever ever
hurt me half as much
as this disease
 
so the silver lining
of having this disease
is the complete freedom
of  finally, finally, finally
having absolutely no fear
that some big man-bully
will harm
my physical body
ever again
 
no man on earth,
no matter how large and strong he is
is able to slowly suffocate me
by taking over my lungs from the inside,
the way the disease inside of me can
 
isn't it just lovely that now
I am looking at the glass half-full,
and "thinking positive",
like I have been told to do for decades?
so now my silver lining
is shining everywhere,
the screaming has stopped,
but I still, in my mind anyway,
run fast and far

If I Had Known Then

I would have leaped toward his arm,
when he raised the ping pong paddle to strike you
and your sister
 
I would have scratched and bitten him
before you were huddled in a corner,
hearing your sister's shrieks
from the next room,
wondering if you were next
 
When he went to pull down your pants
to expose your bare flesh,
claiming the bible advised it,
I would have clawed at his clothes
while howling like a banshee
 
I would have screamed at your mother,
when she did not stop him,
because she believed "It is not my place
to correct my husband; God will judge him later...."
 
Yes I would have contacted
"the authorities",
but yes I would have assumed
they would do nothing
 
I wonder if he shamed you both
every time you two laughed uproariously,
like he shamed me when I was a little girl,
since to him anything like unbridled joy
from a female
is a cardinal sin
 
If I had known
he used chapter and verse,
and the threat of a burning hell
to scare you into submission
and guilt you into phobias
 
I would have torn that book
to shreds
and nailed his hands
to the deviant diseased cross
that he himself made
in his own image