by Hannah Storm
TW: Sexual Assault
There’s a hill in Rio which overlooks the water,
named for the fact its peak splits in two.
You tell me about it and I don’t hear its name,
just your warning that this place is unsafe for me.
Yet next door is Ipanema made famous by a man
who cast his girl in words but never caught her.
Now you throw a net around me, reel up my skirt,
force me to the stripped floor, fuck me.
Your friend watches because he is like family,
and watches again, when I shower and learn
water is thinner than blood. You kiss me goodbye
beneath the hill, tell me its name means two brothers.
A journalist for 20 years, Hannah Storm’s flash fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction is often inspired by her experiences travelling the world for work. This year she won the ‘I Must Be Off!’ travel writing prize, placed second in the Bath Flash Fiction Award and was highly commended in the TSS flash prize. She lives in the UK with her family and works as a media consultant and director of a journalism charity.
Emerge Literary Journal 