R Word

It’s this thingUnderstanding the language Functioning itBut not quite speaking the way locals do

Hard to understand if it was all engravedPerhaps an ancestral rootlessness and they’re now calling me “home”

Perhaps it strengthened with the unwanted touches Too stark memories and my mind working against the river to seal Shut it all down as if none of it existedCome to think of it I don’t want to unblur more pain

Remembering names bring disgust And I’m the one who’d remember the hardest family nameI see it from the first sight now My impulses got too strong to get hurt

Where it all startedWhen it all started I know I wasn’t even eighteen Femininity was a mystery

It’s that the sights knew something about me I didn’t They were loaded with knives and bullets Stripping me with their eyes Before I even could make sense of my own body

Female I didn’t know that being born would be an existential crisis A revolutionary act

Everyone had something to say about me I didn’t know what was normalWhat the rights were I supposedly had

I didn’t know where to draw a line Why to draw a line I’ve dissociated From all of it I still don’t want to remember

R word. Growing up seeing how it would take a second to be inside I always thought the edges of R They were too sharpI realized there weren’t enough definitions for us Neither any protection Be grateful that you’re still alive

You’re there and still breathingI reserve my rights to send your way a sight Look at it even the religion deems it my right Keep walking pretty legs

I’ll just sit right behind youAnd may you again be fifteen I’ll feel your ass from your seatFrom any morality, I’m that stripped

Keep sitting there little one My house is just over there I’ve missed the taste of my own youth I’m in fact angry at myself that I got old It’s no one’s fault There is time to blame

Look at you so fresh and innocent Untouched You seem too vulnerable I can see you fidgeting, hands shaking Come on boys, time’s come for swinging Enough of a reason that she’s breathing

I’ve lost count of how many times Billions of looks since I was born At least half of them not the good kind I still remember the name of my short filmPesticide That’s just one that went unexposed

It’s hard to tell what’s an abnormalityWhen the society itself embodies it When a second-tier family member flirts with youAs you think you’re just speaking

It’s like the world wants you to breathe But in the farm as a cattleOr go back to corsets Forget about yourselfSpread your legs And don’t ever let his world rattle

You can of course have hobbies Grow your assets so you become prettierWhat violence A caressing form of your lover

Even in unilateral platonicityYou owe reciprocity in the acts of sex If you want you can put on a mask To thousand pieces you can’t let his ego break

You’re delusional to think that’s not the healthy form of loveTake this pill for your hysteria

Every step you walk is a marathon against the patriarchy Impossible to tell who’s an allyThey all chase the first chance Foot in the door if I were to say it in bromance

I don’t want to be labeled And I sure as hell don’t want to remember There is a part of me gratefulThat my mind blocks it all

I’m not going to write the story of a victim Being a victim is a choice And often times a survivor feels like an exaggerationWe don’t have enough definitions to protect women

Come to rememberWhen we had a course for sex educationWe were only taught about protectionHow not to get pregnant Instead of talking about boundaries and consentThe latter we learn on our own Sometimes through the sharp edges of R word

Sexual paralysis is strangeIt’s like you can’t quite process it Was it you or was it all a construction Your being was enough a reason

The grasp of all comes laterAfter you walk out of further unwanted interactions You penalize in all ways you can afford Not quite knowing how it all changes youAnd worst of all how you come to adapt

How the looks get normalized How you want to cut their tongues and choke them in their drools How your shell gets hardened in ways you could never know Perhaps a forced maturity takes a tow

We always think about the R word is something that cuts like a knifeYet in everyday life as it finds us in the familiarIt catches us gently, softly and off guard Breaking apart the years-long bonds we’d think we’d always have As they say, “BFF!”

Today I’m more careful to call someone a friendThe safest distance to me is the strangerhoodTheir body language usually tells me what stories I’d hear And how sideways it could go

The R word is strange It forces you to self-completeManifesting the stories you know by heart But in different dimensions You have the conversations But most times stop at the touches You’d rather intimidate than invite