A man I am meant to love told me the amount of skin I show represents my right to consent.
Flesh = Yes
Clothes = No
"Deserving" is a word he used.
A grandfather told his grandchild she deserved to be abused based off the length of her skirt, but this is old news; same story.
Only, I've heard it one time too many and now I'm sick of it.
"Devastated" over my hypothetical ****, he'd said,
as though his feelings mattered more than my right to my body.
Well, **** him.
I'm tired of prioritising people whose opinions are so archaic they can't see the crime in their words.
And his words hurt.
He defended the 'nature of men', claiming its an inbreed instinct,
tried to explain the appeal of women as though I don't already know.  
Jokes on him.
I'm gay.
But I've never been under the illusion it's okay to objectify or intimidate your way into a person's life.
I've never felt entitled to a person I've liked
And there lies the generational divide
Because neither has my brother.
Being "unable to control certain urges" is just another lie they feed you to perpetuate a culture of ****.
I'm seventeen, and yet I know the fear a predatory gaze can cause,
I've been leered at to the extent I honestly thought this is it.
This is the moment I've been warned about.
And then I thought "It's my own fault.
It's dark, it's after nine, I went out running in only a sports bra,
of cause I'm going to find trouble"
because I forgot that I'm not an object.
I'd been fed the same message so frequently it was ingrained into my fight or flight response.
Doesn't that speak for itself?
I'd been conditioned to accept the blame before the finger was even pointed.
So when my grandfather looked me in eye and said he thought girls where asking for it by the way they dressed,
I didn't have the energy to suppress my response.
I asked him if I'd been out drinking with friends wearing a sheer dress and matching bralette, and I was *****, would he consider it my fault.
His answer was met with stunned laughter.
Yes, he'd consider me to blame, and indicated his disappointment should weigh on my conscious.
I am shamed I have the same genetics as such a man.
At least I've learned to drown out his words so they can no longer effect me.

We perpetuate heartbreak culture,
teaching girls the man who holds her loves her despite the bruises,
or it was her fault; she looked older.
We fetishes shoulders,
prize youth from the young in return for pre-chewed gum,
swallowing down the same tired ideals from those who still wield them like flags,
waving their patriotism on poles of bone before a throne of medieval *******.
They chant mantras with beer stained breath about how 'our' country 'bested' the rest,
but what about the brutality?
The blood split on foreign soil in return for prehistoric oil?
Our land is deemed pure so long as the violence on our hands never reaches our shores,
but the ocean is red and staining our sands.

How can you have pride in a country who's sole identity is based off having the worlds largest navy?
Congratulations. You bombed your way through countless continents, collecting cultures to gather dust on pedestals and alters
We sin on Sundays, drink till we're ****** then wave at the seven deadly's (they don't apply to us here).
We teach preschoolers nationalism before they can walk,
indoctrinate our children before they can talk.
George killed the dragon.
Hood gave to the poor.
we all jumped on the bandwagon before we realised the princess had no choice and the rich still ruled.
There was no voice in the tale for those whose wail could be ignored.

What about those without lines in the script?
Those kicked to the curb, then kicked from it?
Our pavements have no room for nonconformists,
they're tailored to for same mind, same mindless wanderer,
squandering on the lasted polyesters even though that mouth on the street hasn't eaten in over a week.
'God save the Queen' from the vermin;
the homeless have been tossed out of the trash.
Why help them when you could save your cash by turning a blind?
After all, out of sight, out of mind.
Welcome to England, we hope you like what you find
Because we’re not changing it.

There's a gap in my window that lets the world in,
a crack that leads to the rest of me that I haven't quite worked out how to widen enough to jump through.
This little gap lets in a breeze that whispers of fancy's I'll never see but can envisage,
tangible to my mind but not my fingers.
I believe that sometimes my soul has shrunk so small it can slip through the crevices that bar my body.
It slithers away and leaves me cold,
too numb to notice its absence,
but I can feel the blood gush from the abscess over my heart.
My soul climbs back in from time to time,
just enough to feel the agony of being reunited with me but snatched from the world.
I think I should wait until it's gone again,
and then seal the crack with the blue tack I use to stick pictures on my wall so the faces won't haunt me.

04.04.18

She wrote words on her skin with the hope they would seep into her blood stream,
and flow, freely, through her until they came to rest in her brain;
safe, protected, nestled, tucked away and waiting for the day they might slip,
tumbling onto her tongue.

Sometimes, she would trip over the words
clumsily crushed under teeth as they were flung around,
desperately seeking the chance to be expelled,
To yell “listen to me.”
But the words were confined to the bounds of her mind,
and she swallowed down the scrambled mush.

Perhaps, one day, she’d be able to push the words through her lips.
Perhaps, when they fell, she’d allow then to nurture, to nourish, to thrive and flourish.
They’d survived her endless grinding, her nervousness.
They’d blossom, bloom into sentenced to fragrant the scents would speak for themselves,
her words merely complementing the intent.

She wrote words on her skin,
tattooing her thoughts in plain sight
because despite the fact she’s never have the confidence to voice them, she longed to be heard,
so, when sound failed her,
she worried not but wrote the words.

(17/18.10.17)