We keep writing out the silences
Hoping for a remission
In this constant oppression
Me and my sisters
Report men’s crimes
Like it’s our own confession
Still we live with this daily suppression
Police say things like
You liked him
By your own admission
By your manner and your
Underwear
You gave him permission
I cannot live in this
Derogatory rule
The one that taught me
I am secondary
Since before school
You are a minor
Then you are a female
be good and respectable
This includes
A blind eye to abuse
A woman’s truth
Eradication of my youth
& My right to choose
My right to refuse

We keep writing out the silences
Speaking out
And paying the price for it
Those saying I am not nice for it
Those saying I am full of lies for it
We have evidence to back up our
Meticulous truth
The brutes have only
Their brutality
Their numbers and
The so -called legal system
in all it’s glory
Their ignorance and dismissal
Of trauma
and injury
Their deliberate blind stupidity
Determination to silence us
no matter the violence
Keep racking up our sufferance
We already extended our tolerance
Beyond all
What normality
Could comprehend

Rape is a hate crime
Not an I can’t wait crime
It is a crime of anger
Bitterness of entitled men
Who refuse to regard
Certain of us as human
And their sleazeball
Cowardly friends
Who lie for them
and back them.
Desire for
what he thinks
he can’t have

A woman or girl leaves the
Situation distressed
Dishevelled
Feeling like hell
Because of how he,
the perpetrator
treated her.
Who scorned
And unleashed contempt

Then one day
When a kind man
Held me in his arms
I didn’t know
What it was like
To be with someone
Who respected my no
Who cares enough
It mattered to him
Without an argument
Without coercion,
Rage

I keep writing the truth on every page

©GS

♥