violence against women
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The ghost of the victim told me to kill the men who had killed her.
I was too afraid.
"Please come back, he's tied me up." That's what she told me.
But if I kill these men, then I go to prison.
I know what happened to her...I know what happened to them...You won't get away with this,I know the truth.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I hear the shrilling cry of the Chibok girls,
Abducted in the dead of the night ,
From their beds taken captive,
Forced hurriedly into moving vans.
I feel the panting of their hearts,
Girl alone or full on piled
As they slipped through blood,
“Oh this girl’s wild”
She didn’t know her breaths could be swallowed
Oh no, she was just a child
4, 5, who loses count?
all i could think about
when he pushed his way inside of me
was his enchanting stories of a better life
“No.”
(This is my death warrant.)
“I have a date.”
(I’m lying for my life.)
“It’s just a piece of clothing.”
They told me not to speak about it.
Pretty girls should't have ugly problems.
Pretty girls should be grateful.
Pretty girls should be poised.
So, they molded me into that.
A useless flower on Valentine’s Day
Red to paint her lovers name as tainted as the love he gave
Roses have thorns but men have blades
He grabbed my wrists and cut my veins
Isn't it odd that I consider myself lucky
That no unwanted man has ever put his grubby hands on me?
This is not about luck though, or the clothes I've been wearing
A viper can choose, consciously,
how much venom to release
with each encounter, as if
he knows which birthdays to forget
and which biting remark
They say that lightning never strikes in the same place twice,
But he’s always been a man of repetition.
The bruises on my neck have turned yellow and black
Seventeen in English class
My ex-boyfriend has assaulted me in the future
And my friend eats pills that make him see red
In a metaphorical sense if you didn’t understand
I’m writing poetry for my teacher
I am 12 years old
Im sitting in my sixth grade science class
During our health unit
And giggling with my friends
About the “magical” goings-on
I am a civil war
Brain fighting body
Hands shaking heart palpitations
My brain laughs
"Signs of defeat"
It says.
you were my day and night
you were balanced
everything was as nature intended
but your nights got longer
the days ended sooner
you started suffocating me into your dark dimension
she tried to walk near lampposts
believing that the light will protect her from being a prey
her glasses reflecting the light
creating shadows and within her mind
Dear Beautiful:
From then until now
Your scars still show
Your tears are dried
and when people speak
it hurts.
Dear Beautiful:
You think you are so unnatractive
Dear Mr. White,
Do you remember the fear on the faces lit up by the tiki torches you carried, and the way that kid's mom begged you to
Please
not shoot her little girl's daddy, but you did because he was black?
Purple bruises
Red blood stains
The hole punched in the wall
More yelling
More pain
I begin to bawl
How did this
One Thanksgiving his mother told me this story
About how as a child he used to catch bugs
He loved them
He would run around the yard scooping them into a little mesh box
It's crazy what i did for love
You put me in a box that kept getting smaller.
and smaller.
and smaller.
Instead of breaking out, I curled up and made myself smaller.
and smaller.
and smaller.
It was March.
As always, I got home late. But this time,
this time,
my head was sore, hair pulled
prodded
yanked, as a handle
for my apparently convenient mouth.
I reeked of Kingsport.
My Dearest Love,
How is it that one person so entirely enraptures another?
You make my soul feel light and give my heart a reason to flutter!
The worries I once had seem to melt away at the smile you give me,
I love you but you don’t know
Yet
How I gaze at you through your bedroom windows
How I marvel at your beauty as you study in the library
Gather round boys and girls it’s storytime and I have a tale to tell. Once upon a time there was a girl. This girl did not know love, she didn’t know how to smile, she thought of laughter as a folktale and pain a reality.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful black queen,
Genesis, they called her.
She'd been through more trials and tribulations than you've ever seen.
Her innocence, stolen.
A white man, with no decency.
Racism does not exist,
says the well-off white man living on the hill
Racism does not exist,
Says the woman who had never been asked to drop her bag in the store
I am a black woman. I am the resistance
No matter what you try to do to me, I’ll always resist
Life...or death.
My body is the resistance.
Imagine a world so unlike this one
Where grimy hands were not free to cross lines,
And no one experienced the sinking jolt
Of panic caused by bad touches
Brought on by loud mouthed musketeers
Dear Daughter,
The strange man
who you called father
was only looking to bruise you at night
Every morning,
I wake up with a lighter heart.
I no longer bare any resentment.
Because here I lay,
Reminiscing each day
Remembering how I fell to you.
How dumb was I?
Oh, heartbreak in Autumn
Seeking comfort in the leaves that have fallen
It was the end of my universe
Watching trees and the wind converse
My tears slowly came to halt
No longer could I taste trouble and salt
We met when I was beautiful and strong:
a sight to behold,
but you decided to be jealous--
I guess you own me.
We met when I was young and foolish:
my head full of dreams,
To say I was in awe at the sightOf my young sister slipping through the fetid hands of a devilWould be putting it lightlyA fetus twisted and kicked inside me
A smile is not an invitation.
A young girl, only eleven years old
Far too young to become a damaged good.
There was no screaming or shouting that day,
Sitting by myself,
Always alone these days.
Do you understand the pain…?
Standing strong.
Brave and…and silent;
forced to close my mouth,
To not speak.
Unaddressed is the issue of the missing undressed,
Begotten, then torn from this land,
Double X in your genes, you’re a lesser human being,
You ARE shame if you will not be a man.
What does it say to the women of this country:
when an HIV positive woman is raped
I do.
I hesitate as the words cross my lips
The days of love are bright,
But only at first.
The colors become dull.
The Abuse becomes normal.
The Cries become endless songs.
I awoke with promise:promise of a new day,new world.A world where wisdom cameonly in happiness,where happiness was unrelatedto self-worthand the only true promise wasof disillusion and loss.
When A woman lays down and gives her innocence to a man it's described as beautiful
When A man takes advantage of the privelage it's often usual
Being A good father to your child is unusual
Glares full of hatred and hormones
Rooms full of screams and loud moans
Mouths full of insults and "I love you"'s
He's gonna kiss you then shove you
And tell you he never wanted you
The insults he spits at me stab my chest
It feels almost as good as when he grabs my breast so, I egg him on
It isn’t long until his hands are around my arms, my eyes wide and my breath caught
Girl: my mind is purple confusion/deslusion. How was this only yesterday/yesterday’s game
and now I’m looking at British boys of your same name.
she struggles from the hardwood like a creamy stalliondrowning in a raging surf. her limbs
the appendages of a white crab spider sprawl bent,slender supple bones. her eyes
Put on the makeup. Dry your tears. Smile for the camera. Don't ever tell anyone. Everyone already knows. He hit you again last night. He'll hit you again tonight, like every night before, and every night to come. Leave him you tell yourself.
Sometimes I dream
That I will see them again
My momma
My poppa
But when I wake
All I can see is darkness
I do not breathe in air
This is pure musk that fills my lungs
half-way through the drumroll night
glass crackling, down
a spinal cord wrapped around his hands
his words
shoved down her throat, puncturing her veins
still she remains -
SHE STANDS, LOUD AND CLEAR
In that moment, night fell and bade farewell to drifting stars lost in the atmosphere
Silence
was an understatement
She -
like a sunflower in a hurricane
We want to change the world.
We sang it together in crowded basements.
Declared it so loudly that the world may be forced to hear us.
But they didn't.
You wake up and realize it's not okay.
What happened was not okay.
I was lucky,
she wasn't.
To the strong that are still here,
being and all,
teach us how to appreciate.
Her concrete coffin is now cold wall to wall
All of these neon rainbows hold no glow at all
That little angel is on a midnight ride
She is tough on the surface, but trembling inside
The boys tell her to look alive
What is love?
Love is the way,
that he got me high,
and layed me down to breathe
together.
Love is the way that
he yelled,
he screamed,
he tore holes in walls
and psyches.
I was a seed begging for attention, desperate to bloom
One day I would be a flower!
I grew into a bud envious of others who had already bloomed
One day I would be lovely!
When I blossomed I was a beautiful rose
Can you not see that we are both the same?
Having you became my chaotic drive
Like demons that were not meant to be tame
Hugging your leg with your knife in my side
Desiring your heart would never end
losing myself in the eye of darkness the ear that yearns to speak but says nothing......
just because the mouth is in charge of voice
the eyes can't see the waves of sound caught in the angle of sorrow.....
You tell me to accept.
Accept it’s never you, it’s always me;
Except, I’m never-well, you’re always right.
Accept I’m bad, there’s something wrong with me;
Except, it’s not my-well, I guess you’re right.
No eyes doubt your mirrors, broken by beauty.
The cracks run red, perhaps from the lipstick you used to cover your bruised lip.
You wish to leave the lipstick off along with everything else adding to your disguise,
Screaming grey clouds, admonishing, posing black,
Gathering heavy, staring large to scare,
Growls echo the skies above,
The Sun, the Moon, their starry-eyed countless children,
Pretend your sleeping
He might believe you
Close, close eyes
Violate
Violate
Violate
Make it stop
Pretend your sleeping
Violate
Violate
Violate
Push, run, hide
Wrapped up in smoke,
Robbed of its smiles,
My city seems shrunk,
Sucked off its warmth,
It lies deserted tonight…
Walls of trust have been shattered,
Humanity questioned,
My city weeps,
I do not understand
Why I was ignored
I do not understand
Why I was turned away
I do not understand
Why I was not believed
Why I was thought to be a liar
Just like I do not understand
