Because of you, I have new rules.

I don’t wear jeans.
I don’t drink whisky.

This is the legacy you left me.

I don’t dance.
Don’t laugh at parties.
Don’t sleep until three.
Don’t share my bed.

This is my least cherished souvenir.

Such nonsensical phobia.
Should I harbour fear of men?

Perhaps. But
I had been teaching that day,
and now,
I can’t bear to smell chalk
because its dust caked beneath my fingernails
as you held me down
and rudely slashed my innocence.

When I returned from my travels
as well as bright colourful socks
and pan-pipes, photographs, exotic tales,
I returned with your lasting souvenir.

A dull memory of a cold Andean night;
music and laughter behind a closed door;
the bitterness of cruel lips
and your insistent, unrelenting body.

This is your souvenir.

Perhaps
you will understand
If it is not proudly displayed.