(poem I should’ve written in my 20s with a title like I’m 14)

Sometimes I want to scream

at the way good sex is interrupted by visions of (honestly, faceless) men who didn’t do anything horrifically wrong

just didn’t do things very right

and a feeling builds up like I’m going to scream or cry

(usually, I cry)

usually I slip to the bathroom and let the tears come privately, and calm my breathing and wipe my face and come back and tell them a bit of the truth

Tonight I did this in bed with someone.

let him hold me while I turned away and did long, deep, bones-quaking breathing 

knew it was awkward but that also

I was safe.

He reminded me he was there for whatever I needed — this is a good, honest man and I needed that moment deeply.

Sometimes I want to scream at the burden I have to carry over the big things that have happened

also the small —

The cute man who seemed timid and kind and when I got to know him, realized he saw things more rigidly — that’s ok, we could be different — until one night somewhere over Elysian Park, he continued touching me in a way I really didn’t like and in a breathy sort of voice, told me I’d enjoy myself more if only I’d relax —

or the teenager in Echo Park who I felt certain was going to mug me as I hesitated to start my walk home in the dark — every part of me sensing something was off — and instead he lunged for my body, reaching under my dress to grip my ass. I yelled and he ran off but that damage was done —

or the magazines, headlines, the men in positions to tell stories my entire upbringing that I and so many others believed for truth — content that taught me my pleasure didn’t matter, that made me think American Pie was the most accurate depiction of how girls should be — sexy or die a nerd (but if sexy, know you’re a slut.) Found a diary from high school where I made out with someone from another school and the way I talked about myself the next day, even to myself — “I’m so bad, that was so bad” — why?

When I am really feeling it — the men who raped my mom and the way they continue to slice holes in my life that I am constantly repatching. The months and years they stole from me with my parent who tried, but I now know was often empty because it is the same way I am sometimes empty at dinner with my children as my body seizes from repercussions I still deal with from her assaults.

I’ve daydreamed of showing up at her abusers’ doorsteps, them now weakening older men, and smashing their doors in with a bat letting them know how deeply they altered our lives. Have contemplated interviewing them for a documentary, asking gentle but hard hitting questions that make them realize how they’ve wronged, scream AH-HA! when they realize I got ‘em and that they should fucking apologize and maybe vacate their own homes, cause those actually belong to me now

I’ve wanted to scream with a deep, terrifying, unbrushed teeth fucking howl, break everything in sight, bash in the lights as my kid used to gleefully imagine his imaginary mouse friend could do

These days I allow all the feelings. They are often inconvenient and a large part of my rage comes from the fact that they interrupt my life just so — often, during good sex.

Frustratingly, I am of the belief that most of these men are not evil, that jail time or cancellation campaigns would do very little to change their perspectives in a meaningful way or ensure these things don’t happen again. Despite the rife they have caused me, despite the countless friends who have suffered fucked up rape and abuse, I very often think the thing most offenders need is

support and resources

Love, including that which they need to learn to give themselves

When someone isn’t whole

I will always feel some sadness for them.

My 6 year old son keeps peeking over as I write this; he’s enamored with websites. What are you writing he asks?

Someday he will know.

I think of me as a little kid, everyone as a little kid who did not deserve any ounce of the turmoil they got and

sometimes

I want to scream