My body is open
Open to a world that fails to see it's beauty
Open to people who fall in love with it's softness
Open to the mouths it feeds
With it's omnipresent nutrients.

My body is a shelter
Housing childhood memories in it's folds
Housing every insult I've ever been told
Housing brokenness, loneliness, benevolence
And everything in between.

My body is a complex
Built of bones and stitched together by muscles
A system which allows me to breathe
Fresh air in, bad air out
An industry of carpentry
Always building new things from the inside out.

My body will not be silenced
Should it be shut down
I will ascend and rise against
The violence that tries to oppress me.
It recognizes the winds and rain waging inside
And while I am not a hurricane
I live within the boundaries
Of a beautiful storm.

To Bill Cosby,
Are you proud now?
You slept well at night for almost twenty years
Has your conscience burst your stone cold heart yet?
You were called "America's Dad"
And some people refuse to believe you are guilty
Of ****** fifteen women
But just because they do not want to believe it
Does not mean it didn't happen.
You may have been ambivalent
But a benevolent ****** is still a ******.
Some say your victims should have reported it sooner
Well, I must say I understand their position
I waited seven years to disclose my assault
And no one judged me.
They only say this because they want a reason
To consider you innocent
And speaking of which
I cannot fully condemn you
Because you have yet to be convicted
But I refuse to take the word of someone
Just because they are ever so loved and reputable
Over fifteen women who were afraid.
Why would they come forward out of spite
Knowing the backlash would be gut-crushing
Fire-setting to the soul type of intense?
So, Bill,
Take your shame back
Take every bit of angst you instilled in these women back
Harbor it in your body
Let it fester under your skin
And rot away your soul.
Then maybe you will understand,
As will the world,
What it is like to be abused
By America's favorite family man.

Every evening at dinner,
My mom would tell us about school.
She works there
In fact, the same one my sister and I attended.
She now tells us about education reform
And how it is ruining her classroom.
You see,
She works with special needs children
And teaching them multiple methods to do a math problem
When they understand the first one
Is like thrusting them into the middle of the ocean
Telling them to learn how to swim
And wondering why they are drowning.
Having seventh graders who read at a fifth grade level
Take the same standardized test as other kids their age
Is like putting a dachshund in a cage
And telling it to fight a pit bull.
These students are being set up to fail
And yet, the schools and the government are asking
"Why are test scores dropping?"
"Why aren't they up to par?"
"We're going to lose our money"
What quality teacher signed up to be an educator
With the idea that money would be more important
Than the children in the school system?
Who gives a **** about dollar figures
When you are pushing kids to the edge of the cliff
And getting angry when they fall off?
The game doesn't change until the directions do
But the people writing them are prioritizing the end result
Not the players.
So tell me,
Will anybody win a game that is this corrupt?
Will anybody win this game at all?
People like my mom, my English teacher
The students
Did not agree to play this way.
But if we do not set these kids up and place them in a position
Where success is possible
The future will go up in flames.

The morning I walked into church
Decked out in ripped jeans and an oversized sweater
Was the aftermath of the first night
I had ever tasted *****.
To think I thought I could hide my first binge
But as soon as I met my mom
My hair unruly and my makeup smeared
Mom takes one whiff of me
"Were you drinking?"
Me, panicked and on the defensive
"No, I just overslept."
It's funny how we try to hide things
That are bleeding all over our hands
Tattooed all over our faces
The difference is
Sometimes people actively choose to ignore it.
Like when I was throwing up Thanksgiving dinner
I had every tell-tale sign of a bulimic
But my family turned a blind eye.
Nobody asked me why I locked myself in the bathroom for hours
Nobody asked my why I weighed myself 12 times a day
Everyone thought it was wonderful I was losing so much weight
Over a short period of time.
Well I didn't know there was a prize
For losing eleven pounds in a week
For becoming a sack of rattling bones
Stitched together by pockets of fat
I was not a person during that time
And I thought I was hiding it well
But really,
People just chose not to see it.
How can we pretend these things do not exist?
While some people say
That they have skeletons in their closet
When in reality
They left the door open
And we chose to walk right past it.

Skinny people,
Please do not jump on the defensive
But if you have never experienced the following
This is your privilege.
You did not ask for it
Just as we did not ask for our scarlet letter
Our crown of thorns that is weight.
I am forty pounds overweight
According to my doctor.
According to society
I am ninety
Telling me that 110 pound models are the normal
Ridiculously
Teaching me to swim by water boarding me
And then wondering why it is not effective.
Laughing in my face when I become bulimic
Which cannot be blamed on our culture
But the way our culture is shaped to think
Fat people can't get eating disorders
Or if they do, more power to them.
Being told
"You are part of the obesity epidemic"
You are an epidemic
Aren't we so coy to use the word 'epidemic'
For anything we want to get rid of?
Being charged more to sit on an airplane
Because your extra baggage will offend the other passengers
Because your extra baggage is an economical discretion
Like the economy could get any more ridiculous as it is?
Eating a salad and being the brunt of their jokes
Eating a burger and receiving disapproving looks
From mothers and their children
Who are being conditioned systematically to criticize others
Simply based on their outward appearance.
Being a ****** fetish on **** websites
Like my body type is a piece of raw meat
Fit for the slaughter
But it needs to have the fat trimmed off first.
Having people ask your partner what it is like to make love to you
While you are standing in the room
As if you are invisible?
Funny how the additional weight
Acts as a cape
That seems to cover you when people do not want you to exist.
Being told if you ever love your body
That you are lazy, slobbish, and disgusting
Well guess what, *******?
I LOVE this body
And all the things it does for me
How it moves
How it operates
How it is able to function
And just as frequently as people try to take bits of life from me
I breathe them back in
And they invigorate my being
My pores tingle with acceptance
So I rip the sheet off
Every inch of my body is visible
Can you see who I am now?
I finally am someone
Loved, accepted and beautiful.
I am more than just heavy.

Dear Rosemarie,
I really miss you.
Please tell me you haven't forgotten
The times we went to baseball games
Or when we went to my favorite restaurant
We both ate the same thing every time.

Dear Rosemarie,
I hope you don't blame me
Just as I don't blame you.
What he did was not your fault
I still love you with every ounce of emotion my heart can build up
Our memories are like butterflies, beautiful but fleeting
And all I want is to run after them
Catch them in the palm of my small hands
Please, Auntie
Can't we run and catch them together?

Dear Rosemarie,
I've never been able to tell you how strong you are
Daddy told you what your son did to me
Over coffee at a diner in Pennsylvania
I would think that would be as bad as
A text message with contention-soaked letters
An email with despair marked in the spaces
A phone call with unrest woven into the wires
Public displays of tragedy are the worst
And seemingly impersonal.

Dear Rosemarie,
He said you were never mad
In fact,
He said you never even questioned my trembling words
That were vibrating even from miles away
My initial fear in telling was that you would be hurt
Or even angry
Although that is not in your nature
But you believed me
And for that, I will be forever thankful.

Dear Rosemarie,
Remember how Uncle Joe used to smoke
And you'd make him go outside around us kids?
I didn't even know about his habit until I was close to nine.
Well now, cancer sticks are my vice
And I don't hide it quite as well.

Dear Rosemarie,
You were the only person I accepted sympathy from
Even though I heard it through my father
Because we both lost something sacred that day.
You may be the only person as destroyed by this as I was
So here is my chance to tell you that I am sorry
Not for coming forward
Not for tearing a family apart
But for what he did to me
And how it hurt you.

Dear Rosemarie,
The pores in my bones still remind me
I am hollow
I am human
Just as he is.
I do not hate him
Try to be soft with him
After all, he was only a teenager as well.

Dear Rosemarie,
I really miss you.
Please tell me you haven't forgotten
Me
Because I will never forget you.

To the kid in the hallway telling his friend
"Maybe you need a **** whistle."
And to her response, a sarcastic
"Matt, **** jokes aren't funny."
You're **** right they aren't
Tell me, how is anyone forcing themself onto another person funny?
How are the I don't want tos when her "no" couldn't scream loud enough funny?
How are the ****** thighs and bruised hips funny?
How is the waking up in the middle of the night
How are the flashbacks and her wailing funny?
How is the seven year-old who had so much anxiety she'd tear her hair out
Or a sixteen year-old who kept eyeliner and a kitchen knife side by side in her purse funny?
It's about as funny as a slaughterhouse full of pigs taunting the other pigs
And telling them their approaching doomsday is amusing.
I dug my key into the palm of my hand like a knife when I heard this jeer
Clenching and unclenching a fist
Because I knew if I did not
That hand would go right through your faces.
You do not know the impact of your words
You see, for a survivor
Jokes about ****** assault are triggers.
They bring back every memory
Which becomes a stinging tear behind an eyeball
Fighting not to emerge from its home.
When I say something
Classically I am being "too sensitive"
Just as I was "too sensitive"
When he told me to get on top of him
And I said no
So much courage mustered up in a little body
I could have moved mountains that day
I could have been my own goddess
At seven years old
But he did not care
He was bigger than me
And he imposed that will onto my body
Reducing my childlike frame to the size of a fly
Being swatted by the paw of a lion.
I will not be silent
So when you tell a **** joke and I am in earshot
Do not expect me to laugh
Because there is nothing funny about a slaughterhouse.