Wrong is Not in My Name

This a revised poem that I created for my UIL Poetry.

I need to take a walk and clear, my head about this 

About why I can’t go out without changing

my clothes,

my shoes, 

my body posture, 

my gender identity, 

my age, 

my status as a woman.

The point being that I can’t do what I want to do with my own body 

because I am...

the wrong sex,

the wrong age,

 the wrong skin, 

because I was wrong,

wrong again to be me.

And even tonight suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach

or far into the woods 

and I wanted to go there by myself thinking about God

or thinking   

about children 

or thinking about the world 

all of it disclosed by the stars and the silence:   

I could not go

and 

I could not think and I could not stay...  

Alone..

  

As I need to be ... 

Alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own   

body and   

who in the hell set things up   

like this   

and they say if the guy penetrates   

but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me   

and if after stabbing him if after screams if   

after begging  and if even after smashing   

a hammer to his head if even after that if he   

and his buddies spoon-feed me a ancient 

date-rape drug. So I’ll howl at you. Using me to 

swoon at your questionable light.

over and over

hoping you disappear for nights on end.

after that   

no rape   

 because I was wrong, 

wrong again to be me

I was wrong 

to be who I am   

the wrong skin on the wrong continent.

it was my father saying I was wrong saying that   

I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a 

boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and 

that I should have had straighter hair and that 

I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should 

just be one/a boy and before that          

it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for 

my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me 

to let the books loose to let them loose in other 

words 

I am the history of rape   

I am the history of the rejection of who I am   

I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of   

myself   

I am the history of battery assault and limitless   

armies against whatever I want to do with my mind   

and my body and my soul and   

whether it’s about walking out at night   

or whether it’s about the love that I feel 

of each and every desire   

that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic   

and indisputably single and singular heart   

I have been raped   

be- 

cause I have been the wrong sex the wrong age   

the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the   

wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic   

the wrong sartorial.

I have been the meaning of rape   

I have been the problem everyone seeks to   

eliminate by forced   

penetration with or without the evidence of slime.   

I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name

My name is my own.  

and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this 

but I can tell you that from now on my resistance   

my simple and daily and nightly self-determination   

may very well cost you your life

Author's Note

enjoy

Reviews

[BrownRecluse1298]

that was amazing! and very relate able.