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Hashtags tearing across in opposition

And. And. Fight. Flight. Lost now.

How do you amplify silence?

How to speak after silence?

I tell friends who do not hear

I lie with men who hurt

Being silenced

By power

And hashtags

Divides deepen

The aftermath is more enforced silence

Puzzling

And at once

Unsurprising

But

Stinging

Because

The

Depths

Seem

Endless

They ask to mine body-lands for more patience

Conjuring cooling waters

That quell the scorching

Of Hot Rage Bubbling

With how unfair that is

The men who slap

Tease

Withdraw

Grope

Grip

Pierce

Past

Boundaries

Ignoring non-consent because

Body

Mind

Freeze

Silent because

Years

Generations

Inheritance

Silent because

Words aren’t heard regardless of

Ongoing voicing

Silent because

We have learnt

To turn our words and worlds inwards

The rage and the sadness

The hope and the rain

We have learnt to

Minimise pain in an instant

Body becomes object

Flesh doesn’t matter

Object becomes service for another’s pleasure

We – then body, now object – float away

It will take years to find sound

And the time when words

Get heard as intended is far, far away

I am struck by

The grace

Of women

Carrying shit

That isn’t theirs

Doing the work of coaxing

Their voices out from caves

Caves of knowing

When

Violated

Buried for a time

Surfacing into the brilliant, startling, noisy light

That others find dangerous

Dangerous enough to shut down

To continue silencing

Instead of holding the predator accountable and trying to repair on all sides

Internal and external networks mute the survivor rather than amplifying the impact of one night, twenty nights, a lifetime of nights

I want to listen to the stories that make people recoil

(Words pack up tight into me)

I begin a quest to find those

Who my stories make lean in close

Connect for the briefest of moments

And want to find out more

Find out more about this soft heart

And complicated ribbon

Resenting that because I didn’t publish as soon as I wrote this (last year?)

It’s wrapped up in the unveiling of a man/many men

Bravery to speak through hurt takes time

My impatience

makes

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