➳ cash or credit
to him
replying with
i love you
is like
paying with credit when
he only accepts cash.
he demands tangible compensation.
he desires golden dollars–
shiny girls whom he can
touch and feel and use.
he wants to
hold their faces
in his
greedy palms and
say with covetous eyes
you are mine.
➳ affidavits of a rape victim
he will always live within me
like a twin absorbed in the womb
or the zika virus, rousing when
it comes time to bear children.
he will exist
in my memories,
in my voice when i say no,
in images of tall men with greedy fingers
locked in my hyper-vigilant gaze.
a former courter in a courtroom.
expression cold and eyes dead
as bullet casings,
immorality solidified
by medusa’s snakes.
his facade masks all
traces of culpability–
the lines which he made
and crossed with his
unwelcome touch.
he possesses
the remorselessness of
either sinner or saint,
his face an interrogation lamp
burning with suspicion.
with flushed cheeks,
i check
and recheck
the locks
on the door to my sanity,
smelling the sheets
for signs of a rat,
listening to the tapes
for sounds of consent,
recounting my steps
until I’m back where i started,
my virginity still intact.
i convict him
time
and time again.
he is guilty,
i mumble to myself.
he is guilty.
he is guilty.
he is guilty.
he is guilty.
yet
my compulsion
to confirm the crimes
proves as
insatiable as
the man who
committed them.
my fingers feverishly
transcribe my truths in
tangible form
so that they may become
concrete.
affidavits which
i compose for myself.
an affidavit.
an affidavit.
another affidavit.
➳ only yes means yes
you claim that
staging a coup
against my sovereignty
was merely
a "miscommunication,"
a “misunderstanding.”
but the real
misunderstanding
lies in
believing the sincerity of your
sorcerous fabrications.
while
your soul
finds solace in the
teachings of narcissus,
my shuddering soul
spends its days
translating hexes into honesty.
i love you.
–actually meant–
i love your silhouette.
i want to spend the rest of my life with you.
–actually meant–
i want to spend the rest of this moment
ravaging your flesh.
i want to demonstrate
how much I love you.
–actually meant–
i will trespass
on your boundaries,
your innocent skin.
you are mine.
–actually meant–
i possess the deed to your body.
my soul has already wasted hours
rendering my words into
legions of languages
in search of opportunities for
misinterpretation &
determining if the spaces
between letters left room for
false impressions.
and let me tell you this:
rejection tastes the same
to every tongue.
i’m not ready for this!
–always means–
No!
wait!
–always means–
No!
stop!
–always means–
No!
No!
–always means–
No!
be not mistaken, he whom I have
banished from my queendom:
only yes means yes.
➳ dear rapist
assaulting is awfully similar to
assassinating. they both begin with
an ass. an ass like you. and end with
an assignment to hell.
➳ dear victim-survivor
remember that
you are
brave,
and believed
in the eyes of
those who
matter.
stay strong,
my love,
for things will
get better.
and above all,
heed these words:
your voice
holds a power
unrivaled
by the
sun.
➳ [San] Andreas
lips like tectonic
plates–when they clash, oppressive
edifices fall
➳ rise of the rape survivor
a mind tethered to trauma,
a spirit littered with lacerations.
Her stitches spell “RESOLVE ME”
under the magnifying glass.
Her scares spell “CASE CLOSED”
in the crystal ball.
the path to recovery snakes
through the Garden of Eden,
encircles the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil,
and travels through God’s
booming voice.
the Truth
She proclaims to mankind:
“HE TRESPASSED ON
SOVEREIGN SOIL!”
earth to earth, dust to dust–
wounds turn to flesh as Her
burdens turn to ashes.
a severed tether, a cradle of cinders–
Her psyche transcends
gravity.
➳ mobilized for mutiny
we come from
the free bin
at garage sales,
from pink price stickers
fused to fetishized flesh;
we’re labeled as
“yours for the taking”
–worth less
for the labia
between our
thighs.
we are women–
worn down and written off
by large heads and
lecherous tongues.
we are warriors–
mobilized for mutiny,
wielding glass shards
scrounged from
broken ceilings
and distorted mirrors.
we are warlords–
owners of ourselves,
subservient to no one.
we will speak
when we aren’t spoken to.
➳ more than your trauma
it may seem that selfhood is an illusion, if not a privilege for the lucky. but you must spurn the notion that you are nothing more than trauma’s carcass. like a vulture, scour the vestiges of your being for a semblance of untainted identity. string together the pieces of yourself that are unrelated to abuse – your authentic self – as well as embrace the aspects of yourself which trauma created – your acquired self. learn to love all of your component parts, even if that means coming to terms with your hybrid nature; begin to exist in the overlapping section of your identities rather than futilely attempt to establish residence in one or the other.
you, my dear, are an Arnold Palmer. you are half original and half trauma, but entirely human.
➳ a promising prophecy
“boys will be boys”–an
epitaph on the tombstone
of our rape culture