Dear David,

You tore your way through my life, leaving a devastation known only to a few. When you were done, you picked at my intimacies until I had nobody left. But I'm no longer afraid of the big bad wolf. This is my revenge.

1. I'd balance a gas light above your head and set it alight. When you go running to your friends about my torture they'd smell an unconfrontable unease that would turn them away.
2. I'd cut out your tongue and push my fist down your throat, my fingers indulging in the gushing scarlet, invading your warm insides until your breathing is cut off and I reach your voice box.
3. I'd yank it out, celebrating in your juices that run down my arm. Now, when you turn to your dearest, they will only see the fear in your eyes when they mention my name.
4. I'd carve lost trenches into your arms so that the reminder of our war could never be forgotten. There's a rare kind of memory that makes you ache for it to leave.
5. I'd etch the word 'love' onto the back of your throat and watch you choke on it. I'd hope that every time this happened, you would be reminded of me and the quirky ways I showed my affection.
6. I'd leave you squirming in pain for days on end, my back turned in silence as the shackles slowly embrace your body.
7. I'd decide that you had been punished enough and nurse you back into health, stitching your tongue back on in zig zagged attempts to apologise.
8. The next day, I'd slowly unpick the shallow stitches and start the whole process again.
9. I'd blame you for my actions. 'Baby it's your fault you make me do these things, you're just too irresistible ' I'd whisper seductively to you as my knife slips down to your groin.
10. I'd render you useless to the rest of the world, steal your thoughts with my kiss and blow them into the wind. The altered version of them would reach our friends before your voice did. The silence that echoed only added to the rumours.
11. I'd slip my knife sexily between your skin, opening up a hole so that your entire vulnerability would be glowing.
12. I'd empty the entirety of your guts onto the floor and smile as the gas light falls on to your slumpened body.  A fire will erupt over it, burning the last shreds of hope as your lips will begin to melt. Gone are the mechanisms that may have led them to believe.
13. That night, I'd bathe in your guts, ******* over the feeling of power as your burnt corpse smoked nearby.

Man thinks he knows what we are.  
He examines us. He calculates us.
[A WOMAN IS A STARLESS NIGHT, A WOMAN IS SPACE TO BE FILLED, A WOMAN IS VOID, WAITING, GRASPING. SHE IS MEANT FOR SILENCE, SHE IS MEANT TO KNEEL]

Man puts himself inside our body without asking if we want him there, his breath like an infant’s rattle. He thinks we are soulless flesh to be punished, yanking our hair back as if it were reigns.  He leaves us raw.
[A WOMAN IS SOMETHING TO PASS THROUGH. A WOMAN IS A TUNNEL.  PENETRATE HER. DESERT HER]

Man pinches the fat on our bellies and thighs, and tells us to shrink. He is a net pulling us into the deep, relentless.
[A WOMAN IS WASTE, A WOMAN IS NOTHINGNESS THAT ASKS FOR AIR.  SUFFOCATE HER]

What man does not know is that we are sun, we are mountain, we are the resurrection no one believed in, the one man thought he could suppress, the revolt he tried to defeat. What man doesn’t know is that when we spit, we spit starlight, our mouths holy with rage and crescendo. Our kneecaps are not meant for dirt. Our bodies are not his soft earth to plunge into. What man doesn’t know will hurt him. He thinks he is God, but God is two women in love. He thinks he knows what we are, but we are beyond him. Ultraviolet beams glistening at the edge of the spectrum, too glorious for his naked eye.

We know the truth.
[A WOMAN IS A KNIFE. A WOMAN IS A MOVING FIST.
A WOMAN IS 90 MILLION MILES OF LIGHT]

Man will never know us.

Twenty distrusted fingers. Thieves.
They robbed her in the dead of day.
The putrid smell of **** and pain. Blood and puke.
Loss and loss.
A child’s scream.,
The sound of no one hearing.
Ten fingers scratching at windows fogged.
Tension, clenching, attention
All on her.
Snow in October.
2012.

I have been told plenty of times
by plenty of guys
that they love how submissive I am, but
that it could get me into real trouble one day.

Oh, little do they know
that it has gotten me in trouble long, long ago
my submissive nature made me afraid to say no
before I had given the situation any kind of second thought
I had told him that anything goes.

That "anything goes" left me aware of my worth;
maybe not to others,
because it was myself that was hurt.

He didn't force me, I walked into that house willingly. Eager steps to escape the row of cars, the buzz of people.

I kissed him. Sweet cannabis stained tongue. I took his mouth into mine and held it, like a breath underwater.

I chose my own drinks, paid for them myself. Counted coins and pinned my hopes on you and your fake ID.

I remember it well. No force. No bait. The chatter of strangers in a cramped kitchen as I tried to sleep.

I left the door unlocked. Would anyone? Footsteps on soft carpet, quietly caught me, unawares.

Hands and tongues carve scars into my body. The kind that don't turn silver and fade. A permanent reminder of Hell.

Something changed within me that night. A new found fear. Sudden terror at an innocent touch. The people, too loud. The sun, too bright.

Scrutinising me. Judging me. Burning me down to the bone.

I said no in the kitchen
Standing
When you tried to put
Your lips on mine

I lie on the bed
As my ability to move
Or even speak leaves me
Then here you come
And you sit right
On top of me

Hands in places
They don't belong
You lift my limp arm
And place it around you
As if it's a romantic gesture
Or even my choice
Then you kiss my lips
Despite my no
With my eyes closed

My pants are in your way
You remove them
I lie there
Body limp
Eyes still closed

I'm able to move
An inch out of the way
When you try to do
The unthinkable thing
Not once
But three times

So you settle for
What you could get
Which was everything else
As my body was limp

Eyes open just enough
To stare my anger
Into your soul
I know you felt it
As you sat between my feet
When you were finished with me
Relieve yourself then use my sink
And then I sleep
And then you leave

"Let me walk you home
Let me keep you safe
Its dangerous out there
I wouldn't want you to get *****"

Little boy, looked us straight in the eye
He jumped off the bed
And ****** himself saying
"It's pecker time"
He opened his mouth
And he pointed in
Because grandpa said
And grandpa did.

Little boy, four years old
Wouldn't sleep at night.
"The witch" he'd cry
"Lives in the street lamp.
The witch will come for me!"
He'd scream and cry.
No one knew why,
But grandpa did.

I smile and wait for the Autumn,
for the long breaths and deep pauses of Summer to fade

I sit on the porch swigging spirits, but the ghosts are within me and not
without

I swallow pills,
one blue, two white
two round, one flat

pills to stop my heart from racing
pills to stop the twitching
pills to **** the memories that lurk, like dark men in alley ways

he was not dark
it was not an alley way

there was no long grass to lick
my body, no rough wall to bruise my back

no, it was not outside at all

laying in a darkened migraine room, wrapped in a filthy sleeping bag

whilst strangers laugh in kitchens, smoking *** and drinking beer

but I still know the weight of a man leaving a bleeding, stinging, ****

and the frantic showering off of evidence

I will be asked if it was slinky and if my lips were scarlet

I will cry into the pillows I wish he'd smothered me with

every Summer, I will sit
and shake with memories

as if the very sun were to rub salt into my wounds

I will count out pills, swallowing them with lukewarm water

and I will wait

wait, wait, wait

for Autumn

Emphatic yes.
Mechanical gestures attempt to arrest form,
Bind in possession a moment no longer.
A willful lash,
Resistance necessary,
Violent response to denied consent.
Constant memories.
Accountability never lost,
Never assumed initially.
Mantles are places,
For trophies,......



Remember to buy flame retardant.