life is a constant battle to reclaim my own body
*
work, as we know it, is a disservice to heart and soul
*
they take my body away from me and call me names I don’t recognise
but they descend into me
and their meaning is unleashed
and morphs my body
according to their tepid cruelty
*
men reacted to me
boys didn’t
I knew something was wrong
*
what men leave behind for other men
is never invisible
but I was
*
sex in my head
and sex in real life were two very different things
*
who were you a part of
if not me
*
I sexualised myself so you wouldn’t do it
but I had been manmade
*
hurting me
pleasuring you
*
I perform and you unleash
*
you stifled my own shadow with the ones you desired
*
I know y o u
I know y o u
I know y o u
overrides consent
but looks good on paper
*
your imagination had always been reality
and real women tortured their bodies into the ones you imagined
there was no room for genuine transfiguration
*
I observed what women were capable of
in order not to be touched
*
how they hardened themselves
to repel, against everything they had been taught
their physical appearance exposed what they went through
in order to remain remotely unscathed
*
but they became solipsistic monoliths
all their harnessed power stayed inside
Croque-Melpomene 