I am a third generation of ****** assault victims.
A third generation.
My mother before me had experienced assault time and time again.
I don’t believe I even know all the stories.
She experienced men who thought that because they can push your head where they wanted meant that she would not, could not, fight back.
Man, were they surprised when they felt the sharp ridges of her teeth sink into their shaft.
My mother is a fighter.
Her mother before her experienced a man who hid behind a medical license
He said if she wanted to be cleared to go back to work, she simply had to pull down her pants.
She was there to check on her shoulder.
She told him that there was no way and he could tell the company whatever he wanted but she was not going to be taking off her pants.
They later arrested this man for molesting dozens of patients.
A ******* under the guise of a medic.
My grandmother was a fighter.
And don’t you dare think that for some reason growing older gets you a pass.
At 72, she moved into a new apartment building with people of all ages and backgrounds.
One day, walking home, a man decided to press his naked body against a window while she walked by.
He gyrated his hips and touched himself as she ran by.
Sometimes I worry if he’ll step out from behind the glass.
Me though? I do not know if I am a fighter.
Maybe its because my assault took a different form, one they rarely talk about.
When my older cousin asked me to play a game I was thrilled to be a part of her world.
It took me years to realize that where she kissed and what she touched and the game we played was actually how women have ***.
Years later I had a boyfriend, and for some reason when my lips said no, he heard ask again.
Ask again and again until she feels worn down. Ask again until she gives in.
Because that’s your boyfriend, aren’t you supposed to fulfill his needs?
How dare you be *****, or sick or not in the mood.
Men have needs, and can’t you see when they commit to just you, that’s your role.
When I was 21 I naively thought that I could make friends with a boy.
I told him before we ever met that I was not looking for love, nor ***, just a friend.
However, he reached for the check. However, he reached for my neck.
He kissed me, big whoop, I can live with that.
But then he put my hand on his lap to feel his hardness and asked me to **** it.
I lied and said not tonight, knowing I would never see him again, and left.
Maybe I am a fighter.
Maybe every woman I know is a fighter.
When my mother, my friends, my sisters, my roommates, my cousins, and the stranger on the street has a story like mine, don’t you think that it’s time?
Time to teach men that women, we are fighters.
I am a third generation of fighter.

Suspended between an inching glance and the constant fluttering of hands,
I shake coolness from my neck and cross my arms against my chest
The room grows small, as does the room in my chair, so that
The only room for solace is in the waking thought of sitting back and
Falling through
The floor
I have long since realized your goal, as you
Fold my comfort into a matchbox and
Slide it into your pocket
To light for later
From early years I’ve been taught to
Tuck my resistant words in the folds of rose petals and
Present them to all in unswerving gratitude, but perhaps
That is not enough to satisfy that
Ache in your crotch
Or your head or
Wherever you bridle
That pesky ego

--
c

Somewhere,
between one and a dozen,
was infinity.
Peaceful,
identical to empty energy
engulfed by
a haze of elation.
No frustration.

Take me, pills.
You walked in and saw
a corpse with a smile
plastered on its face.
You touched me.
You ******* *******.
Emptiness dies like
joy when reality
falls on your face.

I felt nothing at all.
Just the infinity
of death.
But,
you touched me.
Enough had happened already.
But,
you touched me.
I chose to be away from you.
But,
you touched me.

Memory has gone in a haze.
Just the look of horror,
on your face,
when you
were the one
who dealt with the guilt.
The guilt of putting me back
in my place.

Take me, pills.
Take her, too.
She touched me.
One of three,
none will know just what it is
like,
to forcibly remove the pain.

I remember you as a dark figure, looming over me.
My repetition of "no" and "stop" was eventually absorbed into the background noise, ignored- As if I was not present to you, only my body.
Something about the way you overpowered me, until I had nothing left,
You stripped away every remnant of my worth.

Lifeless, with a broken heart, was how you left me.
You touched down in the banks of my hollowed soul,
Like an earthquake, shattered me down to my core.
Everything I built myself upon crumbled, and I was 6 feet underneath the rubble.
That was the last of me, the beginning of my end.

I lacked strength to face this reality, hiding from it instead.
Consumed by destructive habits to fill an ever-growing hole in my heart, I lost myself in a spiraling dark hole.

At the bottom of that hole, I with nothing left, surrendered myself to the One capable of healing.
After a long road of war waged on my soul, peace replaced my hopelessness.
The reality I hid from by using destructive habits to fill an ever growing void, I now face with a full heart, lifted on wings of praise by the Lord's grace.
My loss of self value was redeemed by faith. The scars on my heart, now bandaged, serve as a testimony to the power of God's healing.

Where I was once a slave to my grief, I have been liberated. Where my soul was once lost, has been found.

It is that piece of meat
That turns the devil beast on
It is that hunk of flesh
That crazes the masculine instinct

We go after it like a prize of champions
And forget that the meat has any feelings
It is that incredible piece of meat
That we beat nightly when we come home to it

We see it as nothing more than a dish
That should be rightfully served to us
Locked away forever
In a tomb that we call love

We tell the meat it's ours
And we label it with our brand
Enjoying the motions of its cowers
As we slap it on the hand

Forget the cries of fear
For the meat does not know better
Than to be that delectable meal
That we devour its human rights of.