With a drenched loofah cupped in her left hand, Bella scrubbed pink lines all over her body. Nearly scrapping the hair right off her arms with repetitive sways of the wrist, she makes pink valleys go red.

“Soap and water just won’t do it”, she mumbles through her disgusted tears. “Can’t wash it away. Can’t wash myself away.” She falls down into the tub, balled up amongst her knees and elbows. The long strands of tears drip before her. As the water continues to pummel Bella from above, both liquids unite until she can longer tell which is which. She just cries.

Saying she had a rough night is putting it quite mildly. A police report and medical examination later shows she is clean. But she doesn’t feel clean.

Years later, she sifts through her thousands of half-legible poems and journal entries scribbled down in tattered notebooks. Bella opens a more recent journal. A smile gently pushes through her cheeks as she reads her own words. “You simply cannot overcome rape. You just learn to live with it.”