You fear
that someone might love me better-
and        that's        why        you're        scare­d        of        everyone.

Somewhere along the long stretching lines
of misogyny and misunderstanding,
******* and child-******* became
false-terms that were accepted by the masses
to describe small exploited human beings,
survivors.
and **** became a title boys and men aspired
to achieve, and not quite directly the
selfish manipulative sociopathic ****
that it really entailed.
Thank you, Curtis Jackson.
In case no one has screamed it enough,
It's January 2016 folks.
Let's place ourselves in some perspective.
The stories are never just one,
but I'm getting angry and I'm fortunate
enough to be able to speak.
I've got privileges that need to be checked,
too.
Let's check off the privilege that I haven't been abducted
or coerced at 12 by he who claimed that I was wise beyond my years,
and plucked out of my family to do his bidding
under the guise of a mature relationship.
He's 26, but all I can see is the fact I could be older
than the other girls. An old soul in a small pre-pubescent body.
Which is what they tell you to make you feel special.
Let's check off the privilege that
I'm not given those funny feeling drugs to help me
cope with pain of losing my "virginity" to a high-rolling old man
who was fond of his size.
Let's check off the privilege
that even if I do manage to escape the slavery that I'm put in,
I'm labeled as a *** and used up and too ****** up to really be better,
by both my family and my peers
You don't have to cover your ears and eyes,
because you think you can't see me.
You think I'm over seas or in some true detective podunk village
in middle America.
You think I'm not in your school-yard or
I wasn't the girl you teased for being pregnant in middle school,
the one that disappeared and never came back.
That I might not be your troubled niece who keeps hanging with the wrong crowd and going to boarding school this summer,
but she runs away from home before she's sent off.
But we keep blaming *** education, welfare and alternative schooling as the bane of our children,
all these ads for awareness and underfunded programs to aid them
are quickly shoveled under the thick heavy expensive rugs of the Kardashians and Wests,
the golden globes and the best dressed,
and those horrendous child beauty pageants.
Let's stop absorbing this filler material that we shovel into our
kids brains,
and maybe teach our little boys what it means to be privileged,
and to protect by learning to respect.
Our little girls how far they can reach if they learn to never second guess their worth.
It begins with us. Let's stop turning a blind-eye and shut ear,
because we fear making a commitment to the belief
that men and women should be equal.
That yes, not all men,
but yes there are women,
and our experience is not the only story that needs to be understood.
And everyone has a privilege that needs to be checked,
but check your own first.
January is human-trafficking and slavery awareness month.
It exists among us, all.
Let's stop being part of the problem and learn how we can help.

I've been quiet,
        but do not worry-                                
I've been writing.

It's such a shame. Such a shame,
that I'm no fantasy football game.
And try as I might, I can't keep up
with the numbers or the names.
During pre-season,
You'd wake up early for no good reason.
Just to learn me and how I'm breathing.
You'd read my every message,
and stay alert.
You'd always be invested,
through pleasure and hurt.
Every week has the potential to be the best,
you'd count your points and aim for perfection.
You'd think of me when you're out or when you're on a date,
you would never ever ever be as late.
You'd have a beer with me,
and truly enjoy it.
You'd never find any of my phone calls annoying.
But most of all you'd bet a **** ton on me,
something you'd probably never do now,
because if I were your fantasy football game,
Despite the odds against you,
you'd believe in us.

Now that I'm settled into another night
of this unsavory gloom, impending doom,
well-marinated in the bitter songs my ex wrote about me
I can start thinking of all the little ghosts of men
I've washed off of myself in the powder room,
some of which still linger in my sheets and in messages,
in empty whiskey bottles and cups of sour wine,
and some of which I keep around to remind myself
how lonely I've managed to remain.
My ex-lover's voice is straining now,
but in spite of the comfortable familiar sound of his wailing,
I only miss the parts about him I've made up with silver lining.
And I'm deadly close to making up solid bodies to those little ghosts, too.
Most of whom should stay swirling deep in the toilet,
or covered in latex in the dustbin.
But I take a pill every day and ignore the many messages.
I hug a soft loneliness and hold seances on the weekends,
bury my dead feelings in a pillow as I scream their several names,
swallow them whole but dribble and fill lines at night
only to cleanse myself of their remnants in the morning.

I want to cry but to be perfectly honest,
I don’t feel like crying. I mean maybe,
I feel like I should be crying,
perhaps the girl, that wasn’t on anything
would probably be bawling her face out into her sheets,
or at least be asleep,
But here I am awake at 5 in the morning,
obviously tired.
Eyes dry and wide open,
Obviously spent
Numb-nosed and hell bent on writing something to read today
I’m typing away at this screen as if my conscience is the only thing
that could hear me if I scream out loud right now.
Enough of that,
filler angst.

I’ve been a juicy story for ya, huh?
Tellin your boys
I ended your dry spell, did I?
That’s quite lovely.
I suppose you ended mine, but I guess I find that hard to define
with a saying as simple as that, “She ended my dry spell”
In my heart, I know how to end you, but don’t be concerned.
I won’t try.
They say I’m too nice.
And when I hear that, I nod twice with my jaw tight
When I hear that, I don’t show them what I write.

I guess I don’t really feel much anger towards you anyway.
No matter what ill will I try to muster up, it’s lackluster and faded.
I mean, I guess it’s mostly me that’s jaded, so
It’s not your fault.
You’re the bystander.
And nothing is really telling you to save me.
Certainly, not I.
Hell, I’d be ****** if you tried.
I mean how much saving do I really need,
if the knots in my chest and around my ankles are this loose?
And I’m drinking this juice with free hands
it tastes sweet but not sticky

Honey, thanks for the truth,
you are a straight shooter-
and I might just be digging that part of you.
That and that we can go at it hard and forever.
That doesn’t hurt, I think.
For that, I can deal with listening to your jabber,
your kissing and telling, your “**** I couldn’t have her.”
Just pass the bourbon please, even though it's only scotch,
there’s still an urgency, to not be sober while you talk.

I don’t know.

This is what I wanted, right?
No strings attached too tight?

I like how you feel against my cheek.
Almost like you mean something.
You’re warm and I’m buzzed,
hanging off the edge of lust
It’s just oxytocin playing the cruel trick.
I remind myself you’re just that.
Oxytocin and some good ****.
But I like how you feel against my cheek.
Just ***** that you bore me when you speak.

I remember the day you said,
"Ah, yours is a familiar face."
It was summer,
we were ripe.
I drew yours in many lines.
That look littered all of my books-
and burned scars into my mind.
Now some time,
and it's bitter cold.
Yours has become lost and old.
I try to pull the lines together
every single chilly night.
I look at the photos I have left
and I still can't get it right.
Her face keeps blocking my view.
She has come and taken you.
Ah, yours was a familiar face.
But now it's all but a trace.

Even amongst purple walls
adorned in maudlin posters and prints,
drawings and postcards of exhibitions,
I see your glint in the corner of my room.
Inactive grey body with a head of rubber,
waiting to be powerfully silver,
but innocent, you persist.
You tell me my back is sore again-
and all you wish to do is relieve it.
Persistent innocence.
I'm working on a final essay, and you are knocking,
at my limbs and everywhere but where you want to
really go.
Innocence, you persist.
Dark and threaded to the outlet, you are ready
to apply the pressure needed for tension release.
Mocking, teasing, tempting.
That essay isn't going to do itself,
but I know someone who will.
Writing this ode,
is my act of rebellion against you,
but you know I long for the shaking
the rapture,
the center of my pleasure
encapsulated in your interchangeable
concentration.
But I have to unplug you.
Life is too impatient.