I Send my words hurling into your airway like swords
I bite off your tongue with every sharp response my body conjures
I have every witty comeback on speed dial to drill into your spine
The way your gays drilled into mine Pull old pennies from my pockets and throw them into your eyes
So you may not look at me the way you have for so long
You're are barely worth my pennies anyways
Here's a donation to your sorry ***
How about I grasp your neck, at just the right spot, just hard enough, to crush your voice box
To dwindle your air pipe just a little
So you cannot throw those trash comments at anyone else
How about I crack each of your fingers
Push them deep into your pockets
So that you can't feel anything without remembering me
You look at me like a mannequin in the window of your favorite retail store
You try yo put a price on what I'm worth
Maybe you can try me on
Throw me on the floor
Grab another
How about I tattoo my name on your chest
So that you cannot take off another piece of clothing
Take off another girl
Throw them in the floor
And not remember me
You will never throw me on the floor again
For I am permanently burned into your chest
How about I burn off each hair on your body
One at a time let it Sizzle down and sear the skin
Let each tiny poor feel the pain one at a time over and over and over again
Until you are left, raw

This
Is the day I speak back when you catcall me from across the street

Hip Service
By Julian Malek

The zeal of cobblestone tolerance arrayed in fashionable hues masquerading as crimson secrecy, elevates the tide of man but some boats leak in their foundations. Therefore a cork to every exuberance and a triumphant torch for every sorrow lives onward in collective time. Larks that abound because prescience and PUGET sound, that brown has become the new orange which in turn prowls as a concealed swarthy black. To antagonize the willful and frenetic pace, a prodrome of lasting but memorialized disgrace. Should I move to a state by first or last name, or is the final appellation worthy of much more lasting fame. I scurry down the aisles, bemused by shimmering tiles and the beguiled audiences who see much in my limitation but doubt little about my debited elation. Ringmaster Barnum, how much horticulture is needed for assured superstardom, how many cloisters must we evacuate from the incendiary plumes of a metaphorical Harlem..  But know that no virtual reality can supplant the reality that does truly exist, or at least our time is too infernal and purblind to resist. Carrey the tops of mountains in the humor of wellsprings and fountains, we engage a menagerie of egos lilting of an etiolated pragmatic concern. Evicted from paradise, littered with say-cheese demise ensnaring three blind mice eaten alive by snake-eyed vice. To feel good without incorporated tyranny, we must see blue and red as alternatives to the same destiny. A world that reckons with the futilitarianism of pacified malcontent and astroturf monikers that lead the impressionable into a slaughter shed. Established or not, any enchantment under the sea must include fishes once a pastiche of me, but to them I avoid their courtesy flush and never even faintly blush as my egalitarian statements are lavish thrush.

Five TO Won baby one in 99, everyone here aboard the titanic stays alive, you got your boat baby and I got mine, gonna make it with babies numbered in surreal primes. Halt the slots game the nines, a stitch in time is going to turn out to be Mine. Flanger goals, girded piles, liminal like an aborted Harry Styles, we climb mountains we issue tithes, and the turmoil is etched into 45-notched bludgeons and two-tucked knives. Excuse you, where have you been all day, have you been sauntering in a gentle rain or a genteel pain, have you wallowed beyond the mires of doubt and ranked above David Blaine. I hope you tell me of your magic tricks, rather than your other flicks endeared I stand to fight an ineradicable itch. But if not, you placid pond dented by so many rocks and so many ripples give your heart over to me, before I clinch the special Olympics *******, we ran, we span the homespun garments of your left and right hand, but death is a specter that ghoulishly carouses along the carousel terminal disease we call life. I beseech your deepest affection and want to console you for your deepest struggle, to be there every time wed with time rather than a throttled scuttle. Moons make you guarded but maroons leave me desiccated, don’t ever let that wilted flower die, always water it with a rich but gentle ties and widened deck for all to at once marvel and pry.  Monsters of Mars Attacks once flanked my bed, as though the **** brain scared every gooseflesh and restrained every frisson of mystery. I lampoon myself for those cold Dark Knights and the protection ended by the plight of the poor mattering nothing to the deliberately internecine rich. I struck gold in a valley somewhere, an oxymoron of paradox that now you have the privilege to dock, to stay aboard to be a vessel of peace less widely deplored. Even if we don’t sprout wings, we garner the exactitude of measured things and our glass elevator though easily shattered by the glower of enslavement is actually our vista to heaven or listening to brethren tingles for rich mans trinkets and other things. For humanity deserves a legend and a princess, a regimented desuetude and a flanged lust but in our mistakes wildly flouted in momentary moments we become purified by the temptations of an alabaster palace.

***** the left-field wisdom of a pragmatic paragon ellipsis in prison, slip between the cracks and let my suburban muse become your urban ruse. To enchant a caged world beyond a reality delicately and deliberately unfurled. Squirming toads on highways enchanted but dead, are graves for the blue becoming purple in every dignified red. Gainsay assaults me with platitude, a repeated hitter quit on the first bunted ball into foul-line territory. Those gripes are swiped right in all circumstance no matter the plight. The pronged hearing of a trident sensitive to ambient collection, and suddenly we are all in the mad house even though the house of profaned pain is much worse. Glimpses of gambits that gambol for nickels in transit as occult grenades and known dice waddle through without artifice or device, and the laughter and slaughter that trains collegiate minds, differs no more than the tropes of a glamorous violence articled in sordid rhymes. This surfing movie means so much more than Surf Wax America pristine in limited but sacrilege nirvana. Teen spirits smell muskier than 90s pop dreams, the grasp and grunge of gouged eyes becomes a mummified staid, a scarecrow to those who disobey. Childhood flashes with blinding light, and new sight illuminates darkening blight, A blight eradicated only by two magazines and including one that houses the bullets that ***** themselves between death and comatose dreams both within astral sight. Littoral harbor on a seaside town, a shanty with a brackish gown that glides the gourmand to the cosmopolitan eatery on the outskirts of lost & found. But forever lost in embonpoint and forever gained in chavish that exonerates the gaunt, the etiolated prince in heart becomes irrefutable marrow in minded souls.

If I am a spy you are an ESPY, and if I cry than you are a baby,but since neither are the case my wiseacres will cultivate lava lamp dreams for a new generation and suddenly Boston bets on Harvard, but who knows of this piped blather squirming for relevance rather than voguish but temporary chatter. My regatta knows how to swim, my life now knows how to cringe and yet still win and in stilted plays of bungled sincerity the God of peace reminds us of our transcendent personalities. That we in sincerity top the barnacles of invention a novelty but a rarity. But the guillotine quill of emboldened unscripted parvenus ruthless in their eager dues, outdate and outlive the sued swayed blues that indemnify Clinton and make the atomic dog an amazing Winston hill a church often in sheltered disuse. Imps and urchins sting the sentiment, cloy the alimony of repentant betterment, but neither touches the gilded skies of pleonasm striving for raspy disguise as to dissuade further diatribe investigation. Lurking in those scared days of youth, the gore of unalloyed horror scourged me with a limp, that compassion itself could ever become a gimp. Now years later athletics better and scoring goals making the mildew sweat and the years wetter, not a global warming that can be alarmed by global mourning. Take peace at heart if distanced spears of separation make Idiocracy as a pastiche look exceedingly smart. And spar only with the true antagonists bridging malevolence with expedience. Killjoys sure, will joy even more sure, but still boys fluttered heart stopping dead at a stop-watched alarm the worst tragedy of our sordid sort. Give an African Child a real home rather than a spatial roam, a palatial desiccation of momentary Jonas Brothers snapping back at captives with sexualized foam.

Narrative blinds shuttered in an Island among mountains hardly ever wiser to sanitize the sanitarium among the wasps of stung power. Police crumple their uniforms as they prowl down the avenues, looking for misfits and widened platitudes. Somehow that the vigilance of those corrupted by their very career choice, look even worse when megalomania of private is the limelight of public, to their defense few turrets I can muster but castles in the sky will be the apartheid judge. Those that cling to virtue to eradicate Porsche-driven faked or real deaths at the most breakneck speed, that Fast & Furious operation if disclosed completely would turn the Shire of the ring into the hatred curtailed by a song in Sing-Sing. Immunity must not Yoda implore, that livery Liverpool marooned on islands can also to deplore the R.E.D. and still whet the sharpened stead and the fly-by-night Manchester United alights like militant peer pressure for wranglers in tights. But beating the Beatles at a game of Walruses and egg-shelled eyeful towers likely impedes rinkside hockey from anything over bellicose ballyhoo…it exists as a transient fixated glower. But who knows about soccer speculation when love is the transcendent temptation, when nest-egg hens rather than neglecting rig Bens of clockwork and clocked words designed arise better for their token ken. Do I must repeat the subtext of submarines, yellowed as though ugly unused as though unseen, as though the quixotic earthquakes of tintinnabulations Avatar dreams. Wafted souls console the disheartened thoughts of a dashed dream that Berlin hates more than a Furor’s unbridled and useless scream.
Demotic clips slinging from the bedridden silence of a token moon and its token friends, swimming in a shore of ambiguity whether history mellows or whether its furor melts away momentary doubts. I want to avoid the sting rays exorcised by due providence and become the amalgamated talents gentry and of course the upstart swagger of Jack Dawson. But with the psy-op going on, the people manipulated on all sides of a gray picket fence will the relationship bloom without muttered dissent or pretended smiles. Will we take upon the shuffled shuttle and dig with shovels deep-rooted Christmas trees and toast our lives to Dos Equis. We may never go out of style, but the treacle of illuminated imagery when divorced from sentiment bristle shows a swagger that prioritizes rather than amalgamates all love. I love being brash and brazen and honest because when she finally ditches the grandstand of delayed frenemies fandoms of other tinsel decorations without any substance beyond meretricious thrill. You want a roller coaster on some days, but most often you want the nutcracker to elope to secret hiding places. Swim with adventure not just in love, not just in affection with the starlight now matter how luminous, sixpence all the richer is no centuries any poorer and we could be that gilded couple of star and screen and if we ever have to scream, let our screams unite us in passion, rather than a milquetoast deference to pedestaled beauty. but of course the end times don’t laugh at your crumpled wizened relapse. Not out of convenience wed by a discriminating genetic harvest moon but a deeper engagement that flatters when stylish and bristles when romantic but never defiled, never riled of specious pretense. Promise me that you will always remember me in my flaws and my faults, in my scause factory destructions and the penults of PEN-ULTIMATE wisdom that comes before the grace of God in the annihilation of passion for eroded omission. If your goal is to be remembered, check that out…but the most admirable goal is as the propinquities of souls dusted in the wind returning to a spring equinox of passion and if you find in yourselves reservations do not depart from sacred land, and never jilt me because of a boisterous and menacing friend. You are everything to me right now, and I Hope this persists despite the vicissitudes of star-favored afflictions mixed with utter benediction without the pontification of stilted Benedictines  or rather the hyped ludic effrontery of termagants being made of younger and younger women. Leave it at this ,32 leaves the royal secret in royal hands and the Knights Templar and us we altogether hold hands, if only a prelude for a masquerade ball. But the stilted embarrassment of crestfallen time, let that be relegated and emphatically lets embrace what is like to not ever need a real white horse to get back into your favor, because we never go out of style we can brandish the best elements and reject the sentiments of the too newfangled and the too stodgy. We in our crenellated pleonasm can eager ride the lightning to another tomorrow and another yesterday and if even not that, we virtually make an indelible impression of embroidered love not too distant in ivory towers and not to vulgary( catering to popular sentiments) to become a trash glam movement. We soar, others deplore but let their purblind doubts render them blind to our burgeoning love.

Forget the brisk trees dangled in the wind on winding paths through haunted forest or remember them because of ghoulish fortress but with our apotropaic lamp we can avert most evil and call the rest fun and gains and shun but fames never profaned, never inalterable a destiny to magical to be some whimpered catcall. Or we could linger beneath lambent street lights disguised as though wilted garb, attrition of circumstance waiting patiently for the matinee and the vintner to escort us beyond the garb of pretense in a city so abundant with it that it deserves castigation. But I digress, a beachside cliff overlooking tepid waters tumultuous in their power but august in their noises, the cadence of love will sing a half-moon bay on full-moon nights and we will frisk each other like grasping at straws of permanent tracks trammeled of the elite and a sidetracked basque bet. Trim those antlers and instead grow metaphorical wings, to us we all sing but few can match your elegance and everyone would be crazy not to see your ennobled age and together thrilling songs to emulate thriller in sales we will collaboratively sing.
Haughty sneers from lifeless lycanthropy straggling furtively along the pastiched sidewalks of grime, livid because they can’t share the lingering limelight, with as many guarded perks of privacy clambering like a hive of snarky sharks. Lets ditch the big town dreams in terms of posh and stature if only for a caressed moment beneath the unadulterated stars and if you find spars **** to the extent they are amiable than I say guess what my name is Lars! Or wait a second, paused in the big city spotlight our stenciled hearts will guide whatever progeny is yours or mine or ours together we will sing the most comforting lullaby, and caves no longer must we abide. Yearn and earn every inch, as I gripe with my delicate saddened pinch but I think the innuendo speaks . Ripen with our trips to Napa, long afternoon sunsets swim in our hearts as we taste the vanguard’s toast on elegant wine.I console with entreaty to disavow the omen of that San Franciscan church October 2008, the doom implied by Einstein, the raillery of a world grinding down the endless decadence of a railed future inalterable in destiny or partialy amenable to widespread coquetry.

Forget those rumbles in your past that made you feel partial to insecurity and learning the ropes you transcended all and live in all eternity. Thimble and brook, tolerant of all those tokes I took your rebellious side flattens the yeast of Exodus raspy in its begrudged clapping. But the Pharaoh of the modern world sheltered me under his prickly thorns, shielded me from the sickly things that life adorns. We have the numbers on our side, the weight of destiny on our shoulders, dedicate yourself to yourself and I will preen the most vibrant wisdom and love will leap like Apollo across all borders not for camel-****** hoarders. We are culminated destiny in the wings of the best daydream

She was not just "asking for it"
Her skirt showing her long limbs
She is not one to submit
Or to give up when told to quit

She will not stand for your catcall
For your whistle and "hey there, doll"
You should not be appalled
Because she really can rule it all

She is fierce and she is true
She's neither higher nor lower, but she is equal to you
Her body is not just something you can tear down and *****
So, pack your things and say adieu

She is feminine
As well as pure adrenaline
Cease to examine this "specimen"
And become a true gentleman

we caught eyes
in this convenience store
but
not because i fancied you.
i was piercing you
with my gaze
lips pursed, ready to spew
all of the hatred that swelled within me.
you were air and I was a balloon
but
you didn't expect something so hard
from someone so "soft"
because since i was a child
i was taught to speak only when spoken to
to do what men expect you to do
to find comfort in getting someone to fall in love with you
but i will not settle with
being defined by someone else,
not even you.
ive spent far too long holding my tongue
because that's what they expect women to do
they expect you to stay silent while they undress you
not just with their bodies
but with their words, falling like dominoes, spreading until the last one falls
but when will the last one fall?
when will I feel comfortable walking home by myself?
when will my clothes no longer be a form of consent?
when will the lines be paralleled?
when will birth no longer be punishment?
and when that day comes
when a boy tells my daughter what she should and shouldn't do,
his words like howling winds, destroying everything in their path,
she will have been made of stone.
and when he compares her to other girls, she will know wholeheartedly that she is a beautious being
and not because someone told her so.

so, here we are in this convenience store.
and i no longer hold my tongue.

My momma, she taught me to be a lady
never treat a lady sister shady
to walk with my head held high
respect is to look me in the eye
to always be polite
it doesn't matter who is right
say please and thank you
give credit where it is due
and you
who taught you to be a man?
who are you trying to be better than
who taught you to talk down to me
like I’m some kind of discount deli meat
cause I walk down the street
strangers whisper “hey ****”
then they flex for me
“I’m just looking to get more ***** in my life"
keys between my fingers cause I can't carry a knife
“****, where you going tonight?”
this **** well ain’t right.
Cars beep and slow down as I walk alone
asking if they can pick me up and take me home
it’s not a compliment, more of a threat
heightened consciousness makes me sweat
feel unprotected, cheap
another car horn beep
you gents just don’t see it
the wrongs those guys commit
the slimy unyielding stare
cause when it happens you’re not there.

how could You know
as You are walking down the sidewalk
           around a corner       wherever You want
that the world is not assembling itself
atom by sticky atom
from the blueprints
piled in piles (like so many piles of newspaper)
in (the rooms in) the back rooms of Your mind
particles rushing and streaming, fluttering
together with the ebb of Your consciousness?
-
the World blurs fuzzily into shape
before snapping
(snappily)
into focus

just as You enter the room
blending pixilated reality smoothly
into an orchestrated Existence
-
the next time You      reach
for the doorknob on
the door to
the waiting room
-
give
pause
listen            
carefully
-
can’t You hear the anxious atoms
           scraping
sliding
           shoving past each other?
-
they                jockey
       jumping into
the eye of
       the image of
the woman on
       the screen of
the television in
       the corner of
the ceiling where
       it hangs
-
she wants to know
why we divide
Them              from Us
-
so clearly
so readily
-
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
by an indifference to equality
by a contempt for disillusionment
-
A dispute broke out between two
atoms on the table this morning;
a tiny china teapot was broken.
-
how would You know?
people are no more
then elaborate pieces of Your own mind
now once You hang up the phone
e v a p o r a t e d  
                        into no more than
                                           an afterthought
                                                    ­     of empty space
                                                           ­         -
                                             the smell of burnt matches
                             -                                      -
                You think that
everything You imagine is beautiful
                    even death
                             -
               but in an ugly way
-                            -
the man on the
                                edge
of the third chair
from the door
has no face
(none of Them do)
all of Them don’t
(have faces)
-
until They speak or You look Them in the eye
-
until They do something       Wrong
which is why They look                  down
when They walk down the sidewalk
-
They are afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-
where a pillar of
angry
           energy
                       falling
failing
           the
                       pessimistic
sky
might strike
Them
(older than You
yet born
just this moment)
making the ground
around
Them steam
with the sweat
of a silent room
waiting
for the
            door to
                        swing open
                                      and tell
                                                   him
                             -               -
                she’s going to be all right
              it was close there for a while
                        but she’s strong
                      she pulled through
                                      -
                              in the end
-                                     -
the pressure
of the years
of the rings
(which promise to
grow tighter
as time leaves us)
is heated
squeezed
left sitting in
flesh
turned to char
ash and smoke gently
cradling a tiny newborn
diamond
-
perfect           (silence)
-
broken
down the middle-
                      aged
                             flawed
-                                -
You should be perfect by now
You should have a face by now
-
speak           look Yourself in the eye
-
see Your own          Face
stop looking                down
when You walk down the sidewalk
-
don’t be afraid
-
to live
  as a tree
    in the park
-          -
They say don’t talk             to strangers
and You’re a strange one            indeed
how can You see the glamour
where Others            cannot
see that laughing quietly to themselves
can (You) set the expressions on their faces
to joy
     to pain
           to fear
                to apathy
                     to peace?
                              -
              yeah, she likes him
                and she likes him
                        to know
               that she likes him
                              -
                      in the end
-                             -
she wants to know
why our countries
are bordered
-
to keep Them      out
and Us       in
-                                   -
           this is Mine                  and that is Yours
-                                   -
You see
what You want to see (without)
-
(knowing what You want)
the sticker
       on the bumper
              of the car
                     rolling past reads:
                           “jesus is coming,
                                  hide the ****”
-                                          -
in its green lettering
and its largely silent voice
-
if You listen             carefully
You can almost hear Them
-                  -
              giggling
                ­   -                       -
              please do not think about green elephants
-                                          -
(a student just snuck in
and sat down as
the professor was writing
on the board)
-                                       -
             please do not feed the green elephants
-                                       -
I
Myself
have a strong suspicion
that Your mind is
as You read this
(hidden in a carefully cupped notebook)
spilling
black ink particles into
existence
on the very next          page
-                              -
             ­       You write that
You imagine everything is beautiful
                    except for death
                                 -
                   it is an ugly thing
                                    -
               yet still the chisel gouges
                  -               -
  “i whistle a catcall
at my blushing bride”
      llac ot eltsihw i”
  “edis ym ot god ym
                  -        -
        through the crumbling protests
         of the reluctant stone
                               -    -
                     ­               each new line
                                    tampers with space
                                    holds suspect time
                                    postpones the end
                                    and evades death
-                                  -
You breathe
               You write
You sing
                You live
                       -
You casually craft causality
         -             -
         yet craft on
         surely You are not yet done
         You may never be
         at this rate but
         but
         STOP
-        -
the World reblurs then blows away
listen closely here I say
all things must come to end one day
-                                       -
You
Yourself

have tasted the                     hunger
                        of Greed
seen the                                 wealth
                       of Hatred
heard the                               stories
          ­             of Genocide
felt the                                    loss
                     ­  of War
and smelled the                    decay
                       of Truth
-                      -
                      this        ­     is Mine
                                 what’s Mine, is Yours...

There was a boy
And a pretty girl
The boy thought,
I'll give her a whirl
She passed, "You're hot--hot as the sun"
He felt a very clever one
She stopped when she heard it,
And then she turned
"Don't get too close to the sun,
You might get burned"
Not heeding her,
"How close can I get?"
I'm not going to let her walk off just yet
She glared at him, hiding mischievous smiles
"No less than 93 million miles "
At the end of his wits,
As she strolled out of range,
He yelled, "But how can I get closer?"
"Maybe with season change!"

And as she disappeared from sight,
The horizon fizzled out
And the new moon glittered
And all the stars came out

Sugar and spice and everything nice,
Wolverine claws and a venomous bite,
Armed to the teeth for a ***** fight:
This is what teenage girls are made of.

Maybe I fall in love too easily,
But I’m just sixteen.
And I’m just sixteen but
When you cat call me and I pretend not to hear you,
You call me catty as if it’s surprising.
When you wolf whistle at me and I ignore you,
You call me names that aren’t PG.
I’m just sixteen but I’ve got news for you:
I’m a she-wolf, far from domesticated so
Whistling will do nothing for you.
I don’t answer the call of any man, because
I’m a lioness, and every time you catcall me
You forget who does the hunting.
You need reminding, to be put in your place.
You’re a predator but I’m not your prey-
No, you’re a predator but I’m much, much
Much higher up on the food chain.
Whistle and call all night long,
I’ll chew you up and spit you out
Like the kind of bubble gum that isn’t worth a trash can.
I’d call you a pig, but pigs usually have a
Higher IQ than you do.
My bones are made of titanium, of Adamantium, and
My rage came from the cosmos, and I control hurricanes with the water in my lungs.

I am catty,
And I am a *****,
But you are a nobody,
Food for the vultures and
A piece of furniture to sharpen my claws on.
You may be a knife, but my heart is a diamond.
I am a diamond, and you are made of fossil fuels.
We are both the product of years of pressure,
But I took my disasters and made myself beautiful.
You let yourself become ugly, nowhere to go
Except standing on corners late at night,
Pollution spilling from your mouth and your eyes.

Leave me alone.
That’s not me being ‘hard-to-get,’ no,
That’s my wolf howl and the growl of my inner lioness.
Leave me alone,
Or else.

I don’t mean to be insulting
To all you devout Blisstians
But I am not, and won’t be
Any kind of American Christian.
I have studied long and hard
Over a half century of years
And thus, I shall leave you all
To your hopes and your fears.

I find your religion
A strange philosophy.
It doesn’t quite work,
Or so seems to me.
Your god will have
An End Of Days mess
You do what you want
And then you confess.

You can be a right *****
Until you are ninety three
And then confess to Jesus
And you’re home free.
So, tell me again, please
How does this thing go
That there are things that your
Omnipotent god doesn’t know?

It doesn’t seem to be
Well thought out to me.
After thousands of years
Of sainted holy history.
It sounds more like it’s
A money-making scheme;
A deferred payment plan,
A fun-house ride of screams.

Looking back on the stories,
Two thousand years of war;
Of persecution and burning
And horrendously much more.
And who wrote what and when,
And more importantly why,
This mythological poem here
Could make a grown scholar cry.

So, I shall reserve my judgment
About your Judgment Day
I’ll go on and live my life
In a kind and considerate way.
I won’t put on your robes
And make your sacrifices.
I will thank you all to leave me
To my own Un-Christian devices.

I hate you when you catcall her
I feel the anger rise, tightly coiled in my stomach
Clench my fists and feel my blood pound,
Because I know what you do to her,
Reducing her to her body, just for your pleasure.
To you she is only a body, just another opportunity to prove
your manliness, your superiority.
Just another girl to humiliate.
I know this and my rage roars, a dragon, untamable
ready to tear into you the second you try it with me.

But then as I walk pass, the voices are silent.
No calls, no whistles,
I don't exist.
The dragon within me becomes confused,
am I really so ugly, so unwanted, so plain,
that the **** on the streets, the ******* who harass girls as they walk,
won't even look at me?
What's wrong with me?
The dragon fades and a new type of hate arises.
I hate myself, my stupid hair, my ******* up jaw, my plain appearance.
I should feel lucky for the blessed silence, the peaceful walk,
but instead I feel a nauseating sense of shame and hate for myself,
As I tuck my head down like a good girl and hurry home,
Trying not to cry.

Society has turned being harassed as a goal to reach for.
Keep telling us "it's a compliment"
And sooner or later we'll start to believe it.
But that doesn't make it true.

So I sit sharping my nails, not sure whose throat to rip out,
Yours? Or mine?
Because you've told me,
It's not ladylike for me to hate anyone,
Except myself.

Someday we will have DJs at funerals.
I should know. I DJ'd a wedding once.
Well I shan't say I DJ'd the wedding.
I merely pressed play on the tiny boom box (SONY) and here comes the bride.
Twas a beautiful wedding.
A black wedding.
The bride was my first cousin Tamara.
Yes the whole thing was beautiful.
Stop it already.

A scant 4 years later I attended her death.
A rainy morning.
A call.
Awoken early
the morning sun not up.

I have a photograph taken July 27, 2003 maybe!
My brother her sister and I on a Carribean cruise. I'm sticking a tongue out. I was mad at the fine Bahamian wearing fake dreads making money by posing for photos for the non-natives. But if you bypass my tongue in the photograph you can see her. You can see the foursome of us smiling with some random Bahamian fake dread.

If you look slightly left in the photograph you can see her smile.
Her smile.
Her joie de vivre.

A moment if you will allow me. Away from the boat the Bahamian boys would not leave her alone. They would whistle, catcall, stare and menace. But she was my family. She was my cousin. Her protector and her friend. Those boys' eyes would follow us. But when I held her hand down the boardwalk they did not dare come within punching distance.

I will refrain from her beauty.
Her elegance.
Her ability to tell me to 'shut the **** up' with only a glance.

Somewhere buried I have the video of her wedding.
I can't watch it anymore but perhaps I should.
I need to see her happy again.
Beautiful again and
looking forward.


United States

It’s thirty years since I travelled back
To wander my childhood home,
To check out the trees I used to climb
And the fields where I used to roam,
I remembered the friends that used to play,
Wendy and Paul and Mark,
And the local bully that had his way
Back then, in the Boating Park.

We’d go up there on a Sunday, pay
Our money and hire a boat,
That fourpence each to the gatekeeper
Saw the three of us afloat,
Each boat had paddlewheels either side
You could turn, and stop or start,
Or spin around in a circle, just
For fun, at the Boating Park.

The Park, laid out in a rectangle
Took an hour to paddle round,
Once out of sight of the gatekeeper
The banks would muffle the sound,
We’d scream and shriek and laugh and beam
As we rammed each other’s boats,
I often thought it a wonder that
We didn’t puncture the floats.

Then over beyond the halfway mark
We lay in the shade of trees,
The sun would sink, it was getting dark
And we’d hear the murmur of bees,
We had to pass there under a bridge
And duck, for the bridge was low,
And that’s where the bully McPherson stood
On the bridge, those years ago.

He’d jeer, throw stones and catcall as we
Tried to get under the span,
Then climb and drop into Wendy’s boat
He wouldn’t have tried with a man.
He’d paddle over the further side
And make her get out of the boat,
Then paddle it back the way we came
Get out, and leave it afloat.

One Sunday I sat under the bridge
With Paul and Mark beside,
While Wendy came along on her own
As if on a solo ride,
The bully tried the very same thing
But we each pulled on his coat,
And when he came up, he couldn’t scream
For the water lodged in his throat.

He splashed about and he tried to grab
The boat, but his clothes, like lead,
Were trying to drag him down, while Paul
And Mark, they stood on his head.
Wendy had clambered up on the bank
Controlled, and well in command,
For every time he tried to get out,
She’d stamp and stomp on his hand.

The paper said it was very strange
That he must have put up a fight,
But hadn’t the strength to pull himself
Up out of the cut that night.
His hands and fingers were shredded, where
He’d tried to climb up the bank,
But the weight of his heavy, sodden clothes
Were the demons he had to thank.

I went to visit the Boating Park
It was just the way I feared,
I met up there with an older Mark,
A man with a greying beard,
He told me Wendy and Paul were dead
Weighed down with a sense of sin,
And the gatekeeper at the Boating Park
Had gone, when they filled it in.

David Lewis Paget

It’s no longer burn the witch
it’s drown the ******
purity only attainable when it’s served
as a death dessert, martyr Mary
do you understand TV dinners
made the housewife go extinct
or berserk, I think that’s how it goes
catching their heads in ovens as protest
but listening came in through the door
as a catcall, festering on ottoman chairs
smoking that new cigarette with a cautionary
tale at bedtime
the ends  being ground, like the beef
that we’re all guilty of starting between
sighs, or the coffee beans blistered
trying to come up with an excuse as to why
high heels won’t break that man’s spine,
and it won’t in that new suit he’s so possessive of
because he paid for it with the sweat of his back
as the gaggle of his fellow businessmen
scuffle over who gets to lick the perspiration
that earned him that respect, that bought
the privilege of feeling like a man that stands out
from the wolves in offices, waiting at midnight
for the froth to begin to foam and to
claw at reasons why the bed is always empty
when he’s everything everyone wants to be
and I think you begin to sympathize,
I think you begin to understand why
balancing a ballpoint pen between your
forefinger and thumb is equally as
drinking the cup half full
the modern man with his chiseled teeth
and overt way of speaking throws
up at the American Dream, standing
naked in the glory of publicity fame
there’s too much lights, the makeup
is too intense
the crown of jezebels
Belongs to the hardworking man
with the unkempt lawn, and the
natural features of a god
it’s no longer burn the witch
it’s freeze the *****
while they stand flirting
with the boondocks trapping
fireflies and weak Christians
in their hair
and will you listen to me now?
as the hordes of provoked
believers stand in crowded
bars and in your own home
******* themselves mentally
as they chew and spit
into each other’s mouth
what they’ve always wanted to hear
and the pleasure comes from
not knowing and not wanting to know
and will you touch me now?
that the fantasy is created in your own image
and will you worship me now?
that I agree with these shackles
telling me that they were always meant to be there
that ******* is next to holiness
and will you accept me now?
that the book has been rewritten
and the villain is not you nor me
but the refrigerator with the lizard
that tempted humankind and
banished them from ever entering paradise again
and will you **** me now?
that comedy is only worth in whoever
has the longest tongue

maybe (Big Maybe) your life has numbers in the title.

inked, digits trace the shadow of her hair

if you forgot...

how could You know
as You are walking down the sidewalk
           around a corner   --   wherever You want
that the World is not assembling itself
atom by (jigsaw) atom
from the blueprints (and stencils)
piled in piles (like so many piles of newspaper)
in (the rooms in) the back rooms of Your mind
particles rushing and streaming (fluttering)
together with (the ebb of) Your consciousness?

the World blurs fuzzily into shape
before snapping
snappily
into focus

just as You enter the room
blending concentrated reality smoothly
into some orchestrated Existence

the next time You          reach
for the doorknob on
the door to
the wait-, the waiting room

give,
pause

listen,         
carefully

can’t You hear the anxious atoms
           brushing
jostling
           shoving past one another?

Numbers, pixels, they                  jockey

       squinting through
the eye of
       the image of
the woman on
       the screen of
the television in
       the corner of
the ceiling where
       it hangs

she wants to know
why You divide
Them              from Us

so clearly
so readily

she wants to know
why Your countries
are bordered

by an indifference to equality
by a contempt for disillusionment

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!:
An extraneous dispute broke out between two
atoms on the table this morning;
a tiny china teapot was broken.

not that You care, but...
how would You know?

people are no more
then elaborate pieces of Your own mind
now once You hang up the phone
e v a p o r a t e d  
                        into no more than
                                           an afterthought
                                                    ­     of empty space

                                             the smell of burnt matches

                You think that
everything You imagine is beautiful
                    even death

               but in an ugly way

the man on the
                                edge
of the third chair
from the door
has no face
(none of Them do)
all of Them don’t
(have faces)

until They speak or You look Them in the eye

until They do something       Wrong
which is why They look                  down
when They walk down the sidewalk

They are afraid
You Made them Afraid

to live
  as a tree
    in the park

where a pillar of
angry
           energy
                       falling
failing
           the
                       pessimistic
sky
might strike
Them
(older than You
yet born
in this moment)
making the ground
around
Them steam
with the sweat
of a silent room
waiting
for the
            door to
                        swing open
                                      and tell
                                                   him

                she’s going to be all right
              it was close there for a while
                        but she’s strong
                      she pulled through

                              in the end

the pressure
of the years
of the rings
(which promise to
grow tighter
as time leaves us)
is heated
squeezed
left sitting in
flesh
turned to char
ash and smoke gently
cradling a tiny newborn

                                          diamond


perfect           (silence)

broken
down the middle-
                      aged
                             flawed

You should be perfect by now
You should have a face by now

speak           look Yourself in the eye

see Your own          Face
stop looking                down
when You walk down the sidewalk

it's Your painting,
don’t be afraid

to live
  as a tree
    in the park
  
They say don’t talk             to strangers
and You’re a strange one            indeed
how can You see the glamour
where Others            cannot
see that, laughing quietly to Yourself,
(You) can set the expressions on their faces
to joy
     to pain
           to fear
                to apathy
                     to peace?

               yeah, she likes him
                and she likes him
                    to know that
                    she likes him

                      in the end

she wants to know
why Your countries
are bordered

to keep Them      out
and Us       in

           this is Mine                  and that is Yours

You see
what You want to see (without)

(knowing what You want)
the sticker
       on the bumper
              of the car
                     rolling past whispers:
                            jesus is coming,
                                  better hide the ****

the tone is green, jealous

if You listen             carefully
You can almost hear, someone's

             giggling

             please do not think about green elephants

(a student just snuck in
and sat down as
the professor was writing
on the board)

             please do not feed the green elephants

I
Myself
have a strong suspicion
that Your mind is
as You read this
(hidden in a carefully cupped notebook)
spilling
black ink particles
across
existence
running
onto the very next          page

                    You write that
You imagine everything is beautiful
                   except for death

                   it is an ugly thing

              yet still the chisel gouges

    i whistle a catcall
at my blushing bride
      llac ot eltsihw i
   edis ym ot god ym

        through the crumbling protests
               of the reluctant stone

                                    each new line
                                    tampers with space
                                    holds suspect time
                                    postpones the end
                                    and evades death

You breathe
               You write
You sing
                You live

You casually craft causality

         yet craft on
         surely You are not yet done
         You may never be
         at this rate but
         but
         STOP

the World reblurs then blows away
listen closely here I say
all Things must come to End one day

You
Yourself

have tasted the                      Hunger
                        of Greed
seen the                                 Zeal
                       of Hatred
heard the                               Stories
                       of Genocide
felt the                                   Loss
                      ­ of War
and smelled the                    Decay
                       of Truth

                      this             is Mine
                                 what’s Mine, is Yours...

My childhood was measured
By smushed handfuls of red raspberries
That stained my clothes methodically.
By counting sports cars instead of shooting stars
After all, we have enough in the suburbs to last us a while.
By "don't touch this" that comes with the affluence
Of one of the most prosperous counties in the country.
By butterfly T-shirts that were stitched together with secrets
By people picking and prodding at my size
By "if only I was skinny" vibrating my eardrums
As I had heard it from so many people before I hit the age of 12.
By being different
As at thirteen, I had no interest in make-up or push up bras or jocks
But punk rock music and a boy who was a little bit more dangerous than I anticipated.
By unwanted touches from uninvited men
Who took it upon themselves to show me womanhood
Before I could identify it myself
By the way my father stopped looking at me
As though I was his little girl
Because he began to find out where my skin has wandered.
By how my father had stopped looking at me quite some time ago
Because I was never his skinny spitting image of perfection
By the way he criticized my clothing
Told me if I wanted people to make fun of me for my size
If I wanted people to call me a ****
Then I could wear whatever the hell I wanted.
When I replied that I, in fact, did not give a flying ****
My mother chimed in
"Well you should."
And by the way complete strangers have told me to go on a diet
While others have screamed from passing cars
"****, baby, look at that body"
As though my body is my worth
And as though my worth is something to be measure
I have been taught that my worth is something tangible
That can be compacted into a little box with a pretty pink bow
Stuck on a scale and weighed
And that the number I see on that scale
The number of pounds that my body physically contains
Directly correlates with my worth as a person.
Do those strangers that hound me about my weight even stop to think
That I spend hours in front of the mirror
Pinching my skin into too-tight jeans
******* in my stomach because I just want to look my thinnest?
Do they even wonder about my past
How I have tried to diet and that is the only time I can remember my father
Treating me like a decent human being?
Oh, but I didn't lose much weight
In fact, the only time I really lost anything significant
Was when I was bulimic.
But they don't question that either.
And to the strangers who catcall me
That "body" has been abused by men I have trusted
That "body" has lost all control on a bed when a man took it from her
That "body" is strong, healthy and beautiful
It is not just a door mat for you to wipe your paws on
It is not just a *** toy whose sole purpose is to satisfy you
And then be thrown away
Is this what it means to be a woman?
To have your personhood and purpose in this world
Be quantified and made so it can be held in the same small palms
That smushed raspberries at six years old?
I hope that my worth can someday be more
Than a measurement.

You look at my body
And tell me i'm pretty
I turn away and you say
"Dang what a hottie"

Why is it that every time i hear
a catcall or whistle
instead of feeling good  
I turn in anger and I bristle

I wish when you saw my curves
you wouldn't gawk
instead walk over to me
and let's talk

I feel nasty in my own skin
I shrink out of embarrassment
uncomfortable in the only place I've ever been
wishing more than anything that I had no body

I fear that the only reason you like me
is not for my heart
wish that wasn't how it has to be
but that's how it's been from the start

So I will ask now
how
when
who
will love me, for me?

We catcall our deaths
Until they show
A little skin.
Then we run back
To the ones
We've abandoned,
Just to say
We needed them
All along.

We mistake determinism
For free will
We mistake calculated moves
For wishful thinking.

These are our lives.

And if reincarnation
Is just another form
Of procrastination,
Why postpone
The inevitable?

New organs
For old bodies.
Old souls
For new flesh.

When your day
Has come
Will who you are
Be the same
As who
You could have been?

When we finally hit empty
For the last time,
Will it really be
The last time?

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest:
1. How cute did my **** look as I walked home from school?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. How old must a girl be before you catcall her?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. How many miles is a girl allowed to travel from her home before she is a target?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4. In this deadly hot summer, how many layers must a girl wear to protect herself from your cries?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5. How many times has this method of courtship ever been effective?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6. How many boys does a girl need in order to protect her from you?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. How many times has someone catcalled your mother, your sister, your daughter?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
8. If unable to answer Question 7, how many times have they come home crying, holding their clothes tight to shield themselves?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
9. How many letters are in my name?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I'm sorry. That last question was unfair.
You would never know my name because,
despite all the curses and jeering,
you never once asked for it.

My name is @@@@@@.
I am not your "baby."
I am not your "**."
I am not your "****."
I am me, and I belong to no one.

10. How likely are you to allow me to not be anything else?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

A dog somehow learned cat-speak,
thought the second language, part of his camoflague
but his  attempts for catcall sounded like muffled dog's howl
caterwaul, should I need to say, was all foul,
quite threatening to  any cat with a bit of self-respect.

Walking to the bathroom in Lowe's.
The Lighting Aisle.
A man rounds the corner,
White-haired, Caucasian
"Whoa, how you doin'?"

Stunned, I barely register,
but turn my eyes down and hurry on.

Only later do I remember
the way his eyes traveled my body,
the way his words felt
like I felt nothing at all
Only later do I process,
what a disgusting perv!

At an art festival that night
I find myself watching every man around me
Panicking in a pizza place bathroom

Later, thinking on it,
I am angry.
I should have screamed and made a fuss
but I turned my eyes down and hurried on.
Why am I always silent when the time comes?

What are YOU looking at?
Smack that ***,
Talk about sass.

Looking at me sweetheart?
Well *******, I'll only tear you apart.

You think you can change me?
We'll see about that,
You rearrange me?
What a dumb ****.

What else have you got to say for yourself?
Sexualizing women's bodies,
Your catcall can help **** oneself,
But it wouldn't be just your fault, it'd be everybody's.

I'm not quite sure when I first realized this body didn't belong to me.
12 years old, just a child, running down the street,
I "recieved" my first catcall.
Middle school me, masked by insecuirty, appauled,
Confused by the meaning behind this "gift" given to me.
Now, everywhere I turn, still a child at 15,
My insecuirty masked by makeup that defines my beauty,
I'm faced with whistles and comments that "raise my self-esteem."
I walk into a store alone and assess the face of everyone who passes by,
Wonder if my shirt is cut too low, or my pants too tight,
Because when I wear something I like, I'm inviting guys to stare at my ***.
Right?

8th grade, I first discovered leggings,
Comfort classier than sweatpants but easier than jeans,
Barely 13, I turn around to "**** Alyssa, who knew you had a *****?"
Harassed daily in the halls by fist bumping boys who made no effort to hide the fact that I was the subject of their conversation.
But attention was attention,
I didn't know I was supposed to care my body was the only thing on display.
The year my best feature turned from my eyes, or my hair, or my smile,
To solely my body.
The year compliments were no longer for my new outfit, but instead my figure.
The year my leggings invited countless guys to add me on Snapchat just to start a conversation with,
"Your *** looked good today."
Classy.

The world is a camera and I'm stuck in the frame,
Hopelessly on show for others to watch,
Wondering if I look alright,
Hoping I didn't blink.

Even now, I find myself turning around,
Making sure I look good in my jeans.
But this body doesn't belong to me,
I never look good just for me to see,
Because I was taught at age 12 that boys will be boys and only care about the outside.
Boys are supposed to look at my backside.
Recently I came to this realization and questioned why I was ever flattered by a comment on my body in a certain garment.
Why I readjusted push up bras and high waisted jeans to impress the boy in my dreams.
When I asked this question outloud, I was faced with "I can't help the fact you have a nice body."
"It's a compliment. If you don't like it, don't wear tight things."
But now I realize it's society.
Society is the monster that teaches young girls they are toys.
Society teaches ***, catcalls, and harassment to the boys.
I scroll through my Instagram feed, and posts show me that I am supposed to look nice.
For a man.
Because what's the point in wearing a bikini if a man doesn't see?
Right?
Wrong.

Standing in front of me in my mirror is a body marked by society.
Makeup that makes my skin and eyes pretty, society put that brush in my hand and taught me to paint.
Hair frying under heat,
Clothes that show my best features, according to society.
Now its 6:33 in the morning, I've been up for two hours, I'm blow drying my hair and wondering why the hell I care.
A body on show for everyone else to see,
This body doesn't belong to me.

I wish I could say your words bounced right off
My back as I walked past

That the fear and humiliation
Barely even lasts

I wish I could say I wasn’t fazed at all.

And that my own pride made me tall

But alas, I was small

When you whistled, I froze.
When you threatened to grab me,
My heart raced

My stride did not deepen
My steps were fast-paced

I pulled my jacket across my chest
Ducked into a store and hoped for the best

And when I got home I could not rest.

Because your words did not bounce back
They sunk into my skin
They filled my ears and blurred my sight
And made my whole world spin

I didn’t say anything.
But not because I felt strong.

I didn’t say anything
Because I was scared of you being strong

Grabbing me like you said.
Becoming Hurt, Traumatized, Dead.

And I may not have bruises but I feel it in my head
A lingering sense of dread
Keeping me awake in bed

I feel it when I dress in the morning
And am careful about what I wear
Where I go
Wearing me down slowly

Your words are not the first.
But they hit me the worst.

I could feel your eyes ******* me
As you leaned against the wall
Sexualizing a little girl
Who was barely 5 feet tall

Your words mean nothing to them
and everything to me.

no child is spared from your gaze
you
watch me reel and roast
soaking in brine,
save me from the ocean or a shark -
i won’t look you in the eye, only a glance
only a furtive glance
i’ve seen you all before
father? lover? god?

Come talk to me over the chattering mouths
Of customers and acquaintances.
We can drink coffee in the beer garden,
Agitating the tobacco leaves far too often
And using friendship as therapy.

You’ll sit with your sunglasses framed in your hair.
An old scar is a teardrop, as we claim compensation
For the damage done in our years apart.
Come walk with me through old graveyards,
As the living take to existence.

Teenagers catcall and chase each other in the park,
They shelve their hair in the wind
And religiously practice apathy.
We link arms past the tree hollow full of syringes,
Knowing there is nothing left to surprise us.

These streets are turning into a gamble;
Bookmakers, cash converters and hairdressers
Train feet towards the old clock tower.
Only the sprawl of supermarket isles
Keeps ignorance well-fed in this town.

Come listen to these old songs with me.
The poet is dead, but the melody lives,
And it is still wonderful to be alive.
Come with me past the crooked spire;
The devil left long ago.

Do you think i look pretty
Just for your attention?
Sorry but if you threaten me,
My skirt should not be mentioned

We are both human and I
Don't wolf-whistle at your ****;
I have some decency and won't
Catcall as you walk past

Whatever I wear is solely
For me and not for you,
I don't deserve attack or
****, or any kind of abuse

If I want to show my legs,
Then that is just fine
And if I like this dress, your
Assault shouldn't cross my mind

Even if I walked naked,
I wouldn't be asking for it
Besides I was always told:
"If you've got it flaunt it!"

Why should I take steps to
Repel you and protect myself,
When the real question is
Why can't you control yourself?

*© Tara India.

There is ONE.
A girl cries herself to sleep after her boyfriend of 3 months tries to get up her skirt and then tells her she's not pretty when she denies him.

There are TWO.
A boy cuts his wrists after his girlfriend of 8 months leaves him because he won't sleep with her. He's 13. She's 12.

There are THREE.
A young woman kills herself after people tell her that her **** was her fault because she was impaired. It was just a fun night out with the girls to celebrate getting their Masters Degrees.

There are FOUR.
A young college male drowns himself in pills after being beaten and sodomized by straight males on his daily walk home from work because, "that's all **** are good for and we know you like it."

There are THOUSANDS MORE
A child that stops speaking because a family friend starts touching inappropriately and taking pictures.
Adults that carry weapons they aren't trained to use because others catcall them or follow them home.
A woman that takes a boxing class, not because she loves to box, but because her ex boyfriend beat her so bad she nearly died.
The mother that can't let her kids outside because strangers are no joke.
The middle school girl that snuck out of the house in a mini-skirt that never made it home.


"Every 109 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.
And every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison." RAINN

Check out https://www.rainn.org/statistics

Unlike the sea,
I stabbed by do re mi
Bleed until a la, a ti
A higher do on the bottom of a pond!

Unlike smoking,
Too much fascinated by fake kindness kills you
Hit by another train
I breathe strangers' death on the street, in front of a hospital
There, spiders, there, cockroaches
Rains hard, a cricket flood
Don't catcall me, I am scared!
Where's the rainbow?
I have fear of insects and sometimes people

Scream for me if you don't want me to
Cry for me if you don't want me to
Begin your episode if you want me to stop
I'll clap and clap and clap and clap
*I am a clown! A happy clown!