R Word
It’s this thingUnderstanding the languageFunctioning itBut not quite speaking the way locals do
Hard to understand if it was all engravedPerhaps an ancestral rootlessnessand they’re now calling me “home”
Perhaps it strengthened with the unwanted touchesToo stark memories and my mind working against the river to sealShut it all down as if none of it existedCome to think of it I don’t want to unblur more pain
Remembering names bring disgustAnd I’m the one who’d remember the hardest family nameI see it from the first sight nowMy impulses got too strong to get hurt
Where it all startedWhen it all startedI know I wasn’t even eighteenFemininity was a mystery
It’s that the sights knew something about me I didn’tThey were loaded with knives and bulletsStripping me with their eyesBefore I even could make sense of my own body
FemaleI didn’t know that being born would be an existential crisisA revolutionary act
Everyone had something to say about meI didn’t know what was normalWhat the rights were I supposedly had
I didn’t know where to draw a lineWhy to draw a lineI’ve dissociatedFrom all of itI still don’t want to remember
R word.Growing up seeing how it would take a second to be insideI always thought the edges of RThey were too sharpI realized there weren’t enough definitions for usNeither any protectionBe grateful that you’re still alive
You’re there and still breathingI reserve my rights to send your way a sightLook at it even the religion deems it my rightKeep walking pretty legs
I’ll just sit right behind youAnd may you again be fifteenI’ll feel your ass from your seatFrom any morality, I’m that stripped
Keep sitting there little oneMy house is just over thereI’ve missed the taste of my own youthI’m in fact angry at myself that I got oldIt’s no one’s faultThere is time to blame
Look at you so fresh and innocentUntouchedYou seem too vulnerableI can see you fidgeting, hands shakingCome on boys, time’s come for swingingEnough of a reason that she’s breathing
I’ve lost count of how many timesBillions of looks since I was bornAt least half of them not the good kindI still remember the name of my short filmPesticideThat’s just one that went unexposed
It’s hard to tell what’s an abnormalityWhen the society itself embodies itWhen a second-tier family member flirts with youAs you think you’re just speaking
It’s like the world wants you to breatheBut in the farm as a cattleOr go back to corsetsForget about yourselfSpread your legsAnd don’t ever let his world rattle
You can of course have hobbiesGrow your assets so you become prettierWhat violenceA caressing form of your lover
Even in unilateral platonicityYou owe reciprocity in the acts of sexIf you want you can put on a maskTo thousand pieces you can’t let his ego break
Your 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 patriarchyImpossible to tell who’s an allyThey all chase the first chanceFoot in the door if I were to say it in bromance
I don’t want to be labeledAnd I sure as hell don’t want to rememberThere is a part of me gratefulThat my mind blocks it all
I’m not going to write the story of a victimBeing a victim is a choiceAnd 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 pregnantInstead of talking about boundaries and consentThe latter we learn on our ownSometimes through the sharp edges of R wordSexual paralysis is strangeIt’s like you can’t quite process itWas it you or was it all a constructionYour being was enough a reason
The grasp of all comes laterAfter you walk out of further unwanted interactionsYou penalize in all ways you can affordNot quite knowing how it all changes youAnd worst of all how you come to adapt
How the looks get normalizedHow you want to cut their tongues and choke them in their droolsHow your shell gets hardened in ways you could never knowPerhaps 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 guardBreaking apart the years-long bonds we’d think we’d always haveAs 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 hearAnd how sideways it could go
The R word is strangeIt forces you to self-completeManifesting the stories you know by heartBut in different dimensionsYou have the conversationsBut most times stop at the touchesYou’d rather intimidate than invite