One hundred to five to one to one
no one
They don't need your apologies
Come around the stand and say that to my eyes
you don't see
They don't crave verdict driven "sorry"s
nailed to a cross by a stone gavel
Burn that haunted cross
As the hearts and souls of the teaming
wish they could do again
trying to stand against definitions of self
definitions of manhood
little girl, only thirty-three years old
silenced in fear, silenced by fear
as the confident voices blow into her ear
1...2...3...4...5
times two
a grip that claims, that yells, that demands
a redefinition to the meaningless phrase
I love you.
Three months--- screams are muffled in horror, quieted verbals
ringing where only one can hear
Seven years---body is sliced by knives as she looks in the mirror
and sees a human hole.
How can you live, how can you say
that you know that everything will be all right with time
Who gets time?
Not ninety-nine thousand
demoralized, demonized, unrecongnized,
set free with a fine, or gone undefined alltogether
as Fear's closet of nails confines a million
ostracized and mortified
unable to band together
thank you judicial priority.
One hundredth of abusers given time
two years later out again
But one hundred-thousand others
hear you tell them
how to heal a womb ***** unsacred,
how to stand against a beast stripped naked,
how to quickly turn a limb placated
before it comes down to bruise her swollen rainbow skin.
And you justify a girl ripped open
entered in agony, her ***** broken
the first time she was eight years old
the hundredth time she was nine.
And you sympathize
as the sad man cries behind the podium
how can you not understand that no means no
no means don't
no means stop
stop means help me.
He understood that
he understood and he disregarded
every being on this rock for his own sick pleasure
I care about you.
he said to himself
Where were you when she got drugged in a bar
Where were you when he was ambushed by orange
Where were you when her husband refused to hear her terrified words
Where were you when they pleaded to anyone
Please please please please, Oh God make it stop
Now where are you behind your news desks, your podiums, your microphones, and your clipboards
when they risk their lives to ask for justice
when they cry out for the safety of their daughters
of your daughters
only so child souls aren't slaughtered
as they are thrown into a system that insists
they are not good enough.
A system of blow-up dolls, of pop songs, of stripper poles
defining a woman as only a hole.
He stole my innocence
You stole my dignity.
You stole my dignity, you stole my daughter's, my granddaughter's, sister's, aunt's, mother's
when you insist that the fix
is covering my body
shielding my ******
and saying no.
No is what I say to you
No is what I say to your apologies, your sympathies, your pities
She shouldn't have to get down on her knees for him
or for you
You say you've seen everything
Maybe you've seen everything
Films, shows, the **** scenes of everything
But you have not experienced everything
And I pray to God
that you have not done everything
But as far as I know, you haven't done anything
And legs and mouth and hearts
will be torn open
as hope is stripped from the holy bodies of the screaming unspoken
over and over and over again
Ninety-nine thousand lives you do deprive
where were you when she died
terrorized when the judge whispered
1...2...3...4----

It all started when I was four
and it came with boys holding buttercups beneath girl's chins
and chasing in endless circles
and my skirt was a little too long
and my face was a little too round
to chase them too

I started sitting indoors and painting scenes
'cause I couldn't run like the other girls could
but four year old boys don't like brushes and  blue skies
they like little girls with flushed rosy cheeks

And when I was six
I couldn't sit inside anymore
it was time to go out and face the boys that called me fat
and try to be a rosy cheeked little girl too
but I just got flustered when I heard the laughter

But at least kids are honest
and I knew I was not wanted

By the time I reached nine
I kept my eyes glued to the ground
when I stood with my mother and listened
to my grandfather drop poison into her ears
and told her that her daughter was a monster
and that's why I didn't cry at his funeral

But at least he was honest
and I knew I was not wanted

Things changed when I turned eleven
self-loathing stayed the same
but the new boys were all skinny compared to me
and they did not hesitate to point it out
although quietly
and subtly
more awash with gasps from choking back revolting laughter
that got caught in the back of my throat and turned to tears
I never did cry in public

And the way I walked through the halls was a carefully crafted way
to make myself smaller
but they still plucked me out and told me
'You're so pretty'
(laced with sarcasm)
'Be my girlfriend'
(prolonged by a smirk)
I always kept my mouth shut

And at least kids are honest
at least I always knew I was not wanted

By age fifteen I was so obsessed with mirrors
that I carried one in my hand at all times
I'd tried every makeup technique I could find
and my mother was sad that my blonde curls were gone
now straight and brown to fade into the background
I never knew why this attracted boys
but for once I was glad I looked like everybody else

I was hearing 'you're so pretty' with a genuine tone
from boys who flirted for fun
but I didn't understand
and I thought I was special
and I thought I would marry every one who called me pretty
and we'd have three children and a dog

What I didn't understand was why every night ended with tears
because I was finally feeling the way all the rosy-cheeked girls did
but maybe it was because kids are honest
I preferred to know when I wasn't really wanted

When I was 16 I felt like a woman
because I'd had a history with boys who were *******
and this is how I thought womanhood should be
every night I rubbed three years of makeup from my face
and removed my push-up bra
and said goodnight to the boy that made my heart skip
and woke up the next morning knowing I would be ignored

I wished people would just be honest

At seventeen, I fell in love with a man
who called me his little girl
and made me feel like the rosy cheeked child
I always watched and envied
I fell in love with the way he threatened to leave me when I forgot something
and the way he slapped me
and I fell in love with how he taught me that it was okay for me to be *****
in every sense of the word
because I was the tiny little girl
with the skirt just short enough
and the cheeks just red enough
to be wanted

I should not look,
She is a girl,
And so am I,
But she is pretty.

He is hot,
I kinda like him,
But I may not,
For he is a boy like me.

A girl and a boy,
Both loved,
Not by eachother,
But by me.

I look in the mirror,
See a body,
But it is not me,
Just my (fe)male version.

I have always had a hunger for words
seven years old, I was reading at a college level. I was amazing. A little freak of nature. They said, "Grace, you're so smart" "Grace, you're a genius" "Grace, you're going places in life" but now i'm not so sure because
I was extraordinary then but
this is high school now and everybody reads at a college level and all of a sudden I don't feel so special anymore.
10 years old I was required to write 13 poems for the "Bluebonnet Young Poet awards"
I submitted them but
I'm still waiting for the letter that tells me I've won.
And so I wrote poetry all through the sixth grade
I was threatened and
pushed around. but no one could know because if anyone knew
they would hurt me worse and so I took the liberty of
doing that for them.
but there was a boy. isn't there ALWAYS a boy?
and I tried to write about him but (shhhhhh) he was a secret and all of the things he did to me were (shhhhhh) (shut up) (be quiet) (don't make a sound)
once I was free from him the words poured out of me like a bird released from its cage finally finally finally I could SING.
but there was a boy. isn't there always a boy?
he let the words come and come and they were about him, always about him. they were beautiful. every day there seemed to be more words about him, for him, to him. it stopped being about my words and always about his but his words were empty so he stopped saying them. I wrote for him and hoped he would see it but I guess he never did because sometimes I still write for him and wonder what he's doing.
sometimes people like to tell me that my poetry isn't "appropriate" that it's "too emotional" "too adult" and I shouldn't be writing things like that, am I depressed?  who are they, who are any of you, to tell me what I can and cannot feel?
who am I, to be standing here, telling you what I feel?
I have always had a need for words.
it's about time I started treating them right.

Thirteen is a fragile age
For both boys and girls
Not only for girls
But mostly for girls
When you are a female,
By the time you’re thirteen
You already have a basic idea of what you’re supposed to be like:
What you should wear, how you should behave, what you should say
By the time you’re a thirteen-year-old girl in the year 2008
There is an unspoken list of rules,
A non-verbal inventory of criteria that you should have met
By your fourteenth birthday
You must shave your legs,
You mustn’t wear dresses above knee length,
You must lose your virginity
By the time that I was thirteen years old,
All of my closest girl friends had lost their virginities
Albeit, they were fourteen and I was thirteen because I was a year ahead
But that is a different story for a different poem
This poem is about ****
I remember hearing my friends talk about how they had lost their virginities
In their beds, in the shower, in the backseat of his car
But when I was thirteen, I wasn’t worried about ***
I didn’t want to lose my virginity
Not in a bed, or a shower, or the backseat of a car
No, when I was thirteen, I was highly preoccupied with other things
I was worried about love and what love meant
I wanted to feel love in my heart and in my head
Before I ever felt it in my ******
And let it be said, now, half a decade later
That *** and love are not always the same thing
I wish I would have known that then
I wish I would have known that when he put his hand down my pants
While I was only trying to enjoy a movie in the company of my boyfriend
A man who I thought I could trust
Excuse me, a boy who I thought I could trust
I wish I would have known that when he whispered daggers in my ear
Telling me that he loved me enough to “grace” me with his touch
I wish I would have known that when he pushed me into the couch
With the rough insides of his palms
And gained entry to a gate
That I never gave him the key to
And I wish I would have known that when I asked him later,
“What just happened?”
Too stunned and in pain to cry
And he replied,
“It’s what girlfriends and boyfriends do.
It’s what you do when a girlfriend loves her boyfriend.
You do love me, right?”
And I said yes
When I went back to his house a week later,
I told him that I felt ashamed, and guilty, and *****
Because I didn’t want to lose my virginity
And I had told him that again and again and again
And I was enraged
I was angry because I didn’t have a word for what had happened to me
I had been taught that **** only happens in dark alleys
Not in the basement of your boyfriend’s home
I had been taught that **** only happens when you wear short skirts and halter-tops
Not jeans and a sweatshirt
I had been taught that rapists were old men who I didn’t know
Not my sixteen-year-old boyfriend of two years
And he responded to my anger
But instead of pushing me into the couch,
He pushed me into the wall
And then into the floor
And then out of his life
And you would think,
“Good, this is where it ends. It’s all over now.”
But let it be said, now, half a decade later,
That for survivors of ****** assault, it is never over
The story continues with Planned Parenthood staff, two years later
Having to be the ones to break the news to me
That it was not normal relationship behavior
And hearing the nurse, outside the door, tell another nurse,
“We’ve got another one.”
The story continues with my father asking me,
“Are you sure you didn’t just have *** with him? Were you asking for it?”
The story continues with my sixteen-year-old classmates
Calling me a ***** *****
Because a friend of my ****** decided to tell the entire school
About what had happened to me in that basement three years prior
The story continues after I broke up with my ex-fiancé
And he befriended my ******
In an attempt to **** me off for “breaking his heart”
The story never ends for ****** assault survivors
Statistically, a quarter of the women reading this poem
Will be or have been ***** at some point in her lifetime
And for those women, the story will not end
So now the question presents itself:
How can we end the story?
Therefore, as the author of this **** poem,
I take responsibility for this question,
And I answer it this way:
In the same way that I learned
When I was thirteen years old
That love and *** are not always the same thing,
You must teach your boys
That yes and silence are not always the same thing.

I see you.

And I hear them too.

"You need to choose."
"Well you must like one more than the other"
"This is just a phase."
"Oh, you're just confused."

I see you.

And I hear society.

Today, society feels threatened by anything that does not fit a label.
Especially if that label leads to more confusion than clarity.

Dear Little Bi-Girl, you are not the problem.

Gay - Men who like Men
Lesbian - Women who like women
Bi-****** - you like both?

Dear Little Bi-Girl, they are confused by you.

Bi-sexuality is what the "B" in LGBT stands for.
Proving that you are recognized as "different" and it's okay.
But yet you still feel the lack of respect associated with who you want to love.

Little Bi-Girl, you remind society that there is a grey area in this black and  white world.

You are the blurred line.
You are the example of half and half.
You are the misunderstood.

And I still see you.

Not fully allowed to be a part of the straight world and not fully allowed to be a part of the gay world.

You feel awkward in both.
You don't fit in a box.

Borderline hetero, borderline ****.

And I still see you.

You like the softness of a woman,
The ruggedness of a man,

And society is not content with your opinion of your ****** orientation:

"I just like people".

Society is loud and drowns you out.

"You need to choose."
"Well you must like one more than the other"
"This is just a phase."
"Oh, you're just confused."

But Little Bi-Girl,

I see you.

You can't choose.
You don't like one more than the other.
and It's not just a phase.

You're not confused.
Society is.

Dear Little Bi-Girl,
I hear you.

I am you.