rape culture
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Do you remember me?
Do you remember the way you pulled at my hair?
Bit my shoulders
Thighs
Legs
The way you hit me
Leaving marks of yourself over me
The way you flung money on my face
A woman has rights,
But I’m told it’s her choice if she dies on the table,
Surgical steel stabbed through the womb,
Bleeding out, bleeding death,
Bleeding money.
A woman has rights,
“You’re so interesting/mysterious/hard to know”
Men seem obsessed to crack my shell
“Let me get to know you/buy you a drink/come over/watch a movie with you”
When does daddy’s little girl stop being daddy’s LITTLE girl?
Is it when my body starts to develop and I’m no longer seen as innocent?
red faced offender...
whistle toned disrespect stapled to my thighs,, left from before,,
no, this is not your invite.
she tried to walk near lampposts
believing that the light will protect her from being a prey
her glasses reflecting the light
creating shadows and within her mind
Does no still mean no if its accompanied by an "I dont"?
If it came out with a laugh dipped in liquor and exhilaration
But ended in a chuckle soaked in fear and discomfort?
Phone a friend to make sure I wasnt over reacting
Our country 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
To you I sing;
White men signing abortion laws
That kill women for no cause
Can you not see your flaws?
Let freedom ring
I am
A woman
Belittled
Degraded
Insignificant
The consequences of my
Gender
I watch white
wealthy
middle-aged
men
in stiff suits
pick and chose
A girl says “no” when she’s sober
And she “just needs to relax”
A girl says “no” when she’s sober
She’s a bitch, a tease with a stick up her ass
A girl says “no” when she’s drunk
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I told my mom when you touched me down there.
You were only 7 and I was 8
You grin and bear the humiliation, devastation already tearing, leaving raw strips behind your ribs.
I wake to the sound of silenceThe absence of my screamingThe absence of your shoutsThe absence of my bed squeakingThe absence o your moans.There are no violent rips of clothingNo slimy lick of the tongue
the boiling water descends flowing over the skin your handsran down.bullets spew from the shower headlike a machine gunmowing down my enemythat hides in my curvesbut with its horrible accuracy
My best friend was raped her freshman year and was shamed into transferring into another school.
I met her my senior year.
"Oh, baby! What I'd like to do to you!"
What'd you think that'd make me want to do?
I wish I could let out the anger in me,
but I know that it's safer to just let it be.
Desire is not transparent glass
We wake not to the blue breeze
But to the steel kiss
Of lips coated with champagne poison
Smoke looks like soft eternity and velvet voices to the young who blush at men
I will never forget last summer. I had always read in those girly books that the summer before senior year is a magical time of romance, ice cream, and sunny soCal beaches. I wanted to make summer memorable. But not for the reasons it was.
"It's only nature," he says,
As he waters the vines
That slowly wrap around you
Blinding, constricting, smothering
Your ripped clothes tangled in the roots.
"Don't question what is natural," he says.
When I told him what he did,
He told me he always just had wanted to treat me like princess.
Obviously the one he had in mind was the originally Sleeping Beauty,
Where she is raped by the king in her sleep,
It has been said that all your cells (with some exceptions) are replaced every seven years.
Every seven years, you are a new person.
I was thirteen years old when he would touch me.
I am at war.
A constant battle against myself,
against my mind, body and soul.
Longing to find the pieces of me
I once could control.
My mind was once a garden flourishing with depth.
The insecurites felt by woman all around easily outweigh the blank smiles on their faces. Walking the streets, car keys in hand, finger almosts pressing the panic button just in case. Scared. Worried. Panic. Called Paranoid.
Let it be known that I am a slut.
I am the one who dares to touch those that I feel attraction to.
Here she sits, hands in her lap.
People wonder why she seems so sad.
Here she sits, head feels heavy.
One person trying to flood the levy
Here she sits, hands tightly crossed,
I said "no," but he heard "yes."
Harsh hands rip and scrape and tear at clothes and skin,
Teeth gnash and bite and sink into my neck and sanity,
How do I love thee?
Let me count thy ways
12 for The number of scrapes I have from your regular practice
of carving initials into my endoderm.
your fingernails scrape my wrist with my blood as your ink
That day hunts me everyday
At the time I thought that all wounds would heal but it does not seem that way
Ten years have passed and it seems as I get older the worst it gets
If I had six seconds to speak to you
Only six, mind
The words I had would not be enough
But here goes, gotta try.
I hate how women walk through the dark
With their keys clasped in their fists
It's just really frustrating:how it only takes one person to ruina safe space; feeling obligatedto play into the "nice guy's" hands; how you
The school dress code states:
Girls may not wear shirts without sleeves
Girls may not wear shorts that do not extend past fingertip length
Girls may not have shirts that dip down the width of her hand from her neck
Let's change these very blatant stories we tell our children
about how "boys will be boys"
and so girls will not be girls.
What does it say to the women of this country:
when an HIV positive woman is raped
this indignant poetry I must take a standI will be called loud-mouthed hard-hearted stars in
eyes sentimentality foolishness stemming from stubbornness
A scary feeling that no one can bare. You're looking around while the world stops and stares. Confused from the terrible news, the people don't care. A world, where people never can prepare... for.
She didn’t ask for it
She didn’t want it
She went to the police for help
But instead of going after her rapist, they asked:
What were you wearing? And were you drinking?
Imagine for a moment, you are a little girl. You must be taught to dress so that boys won’t look at you that way.
You must dress so no one will look at you that way.
Look at her ass hanging out.
They say
Those shorts are cute!
She says
She needs to cover up.
They say
I love that dress!
She says
She’s like a clown
They say
Did you think about me?
Did you think of how I would feel?
Did you think of my shame?
No, you didn't.
You made me hate myself.
I washed you from me.
I washed myself from me.
i hear you call the word in the halland my head jerks up only to seea friend hugged you from the back in the hall.you cry wolf and iwas devoured by canine mandibles.
You are not a shark:a woman does not attract you likeblood in water.You do not exist to fill the roleof predator.Your kind, if so suitable to law make, legislate, mandate,
I fish my hand in the bowl and pull out our psychology group’s topic.Sigmund Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development.We find it in our books.Their chins sink to their chests.
i was told as a little girl
to stay quiet
when i really meant stop.
boys only tug on girls’ hair
when they really mean she’s pretty.
i was told as a little girl
to never scream at the shadows.
Shame that I must have
Because it is my own fault
For dressing like that
(a haiku about rape culture and the shame a woman feels after being raped)
She was afraid
Of words they said and thoughts they would have
She felt unsafe
For their actions often go excused
In a world where victims take the blame
he wanted me to
want it so he pulled
at my hair and screamed
“cunt” at me even though that
was all he wanted from me.
but they told me that my
chastity belt would
break if I wanted it because my
