fist fight

You use your history 

like a fist fight 

I’m dodging flames I didn’t even know where burning 

I’ll hand my weapons in 

I’ll wave a white flag 

I’m just done swallowing the acid laden pretty things. 

Deceit was tangible 

It tasted bittersweet 

I knew the flinch of falling embers from the last time 

You’d burn the house down 

I’d sweep the ashes

and build another tilted card house on the land mine. 

You kiss my burning hands 

and fix the faulty wires 

and patch up all the broken hearts and all the shattered things 

I can’t keep losing me 

and preserving you 

just so that you can have a fresh start every morning.

what'll we do?

What’ll we do? 

What’ll we do? 

When every single step is wet and heavy with you? 

What’ll we do? 

What will we do? 

When each of all our fingers will still just keep reaching for you? 

What’ll we do when we cannot touch you 

What’ll we do when we do not see you 

What’ll we do when we need to find you 

Where will you be when we’re done with not having you? 

What’ll we do when your seat still sits empty 

and you’re late to come home 

cause we can’t just stop waiting for you 

What will we do when you just keep not calling? 

What’ll we do with not getting to look at you? 

What’ll we do now that we cannot touch you? 

What’ll we do?

Oh Yes

Oh yes, we’re too good for this.

Good, we’re too strong for this.

Yes we’re much brighter and tighter than so-and-so is. 

They are such unwitting, witless performers 

acting as if they don’t live in our fantasy land

man don’t you wish they would see how absurd this is? 

Bring me a gold star and I’ll swallow the medicine 

let’s not forget how dramatic this one has been 

don’t want me ever to overreact again 

make notes so that we can keep track of how wrong I’ve been. 

Break out the stained plated boxes we like to pose in 

let’s pretend glass can keep holding our secrets in

Yes let’s be sensible 

logical 

feasible 

lets sweep up the shards of my broken unreasonable

pack them away in the boxes you found them in 

stack them up higher this time so they’re taller than

all of the walls 

Then we’ll be free of the misery – right? 

we’re just products of ‘other’ and ‘not me’ and ‘not mine’ you see 

let’s just put on our not guilty faces

and make up for all the time we spend pacing. 

We’ll stand around innocent and soak up the glory 

won’t I be so proud of how you’ll be so sorry? 

Just walk with the walk that says you’re in no hurry 

that way I’ll be happy and won’t have to worry. 

Yes, don’t think about anything other than what you need

don’t be concerned about what anyone doesn’t see.

Steubenville

The Steubenville rape case has been a painful story to watch unfold in the media – I have tried three different times to write about it, and get overwhelmed and stop. My heart aches for the victim and how she continues to be victimized. And for the girls that never told, because they were afraid that exactly this would happen.

We have made girls objects and have put boys in charge of punishing them for it. We are a society that will encourage boys to measure their masculinity by how much and how often they score, and then hold seminars and hand out flyers on campus to teach women how to not get raped. And then we shame them for it when they fail to stay safe. And then the parents of the rapists – hungry for attention and fame – go on TV and defend their sons, while the parents of the victim begs – anonymously – for privacy and prayers for their daughter.

Even after he apologized in the courtroom, one of the convicted rapists father said “The evidence they had against Ma’lik was minimal, Ma’lik was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
And today we learn that the Steubenville conviction will be appealed because 16 year old boys can’t possibly have a brain that is developed enough to know that rape is bad.

While she has no appeal and no convenient one-year-minimum-sentence that will end when it ends and be over.

This is where I lose the words to describe what this does to me as a girl, a mom, a woman, a daughter. This is where I get overwhelmed and stop.

“If it’s a man’s world as they say, then men, your world is a poorly run carnage fest.” – Henry Rollins’ take on the Steubenville case – if you have not read it, you need to.