I misread your belligerency for affection.
I was too young to read you right and you
Made me age so fast. You put your rocks in
My path and swore your allegiance, your
Helpfulness. You saw my injuries and vouched
For your method of teaching me. Thick skin.
You brought out the worst in yourselves.
And I had been subjected to you both,
Making one another miserable, you exploited
The already exploited, you demanded more of a
Body already drained, hands on deck, hands on her,
Ever-expectant, never enough, you wanted to possess her.
You were used to getting your way. With women.
You saw your mother getting beaten. She took it.
Maybe she tried to defend herself. Maybe she tried to leave.
I don’t know. It had been going on for to long.
What more did she have to take? Other times.
Older times. Enough. Enough already. This sickness has never
Found a cure. Encouraged throughout decades. What did you do?
You always claimed that you loved her so much.
Did you help her? When was it enough? For you?
When did you step in? When did you stop it? Did you?
At all? Ever? Muster up the courage? Did she put her hopes in you?
Speaking of love and devotion. Did you ever have her back?
I know that she died. That she was beaten until the end.
The women’s plight. Raped as children. Nothing happened.
Touched as girls, harassed as girls, infiltrated, butchered
Self-esteem, nothing’s said and done and everything is said
And done, teaching them to disconnect, teaching them to touch.
Teaching them a rotten word for love, rotten gestures, rotten
Ideas, stuffing their bodies, gutting them, emptying them, yes, it is
Just that brutal and you’ll listen, you voracious puppet-masters.
Dominators, penetrators, infiltrators, I thought you were
The strong ones, no, you gave in to your weaknesses,
Uncured, ever-sick, boisterous, infested, spreading, infecting
The bodies of children, imprisoning them in fear, in tastelessness,
Ridding them of words, ridding them of comprehension,
Devouring their skin, buried within your lust that roasts them slowly.
Who am I? Where am I? In all of your pestilent bullshit?
You made me and dropped me right in the middle of it?
To be continued. To be harmed. To be unprotected.
What did you expect? What would happen to me?
Born into this malady. This famine of love.
This underworld that weaved a blanket of lies right over
The heartbeat of truth.
“Sitzender weiblicher Rückenakt mit rotem Rock” by Egon Schiele (1890-1918)
Croque-Melpomene 