Take what you need

 

I went to get measured in my new clothes; each cut, slash, bullet graze, bruise each scratch, swab, cup of piss and nobody laughed but with. Normal smiles, imperial measures, gaining weight this time as fat slips free with ptsd puking when they cannot see all the lights glare I stare with pupils still contracted try not to bare my teeth answer to missed moments with silence not silenced shrug off questions of knives and guns old news, old reports make a map of this and that that is what they did this was me and this and this and this I try to comfort the girl in me she shrugs that that that that that that that that that that that that an empty woman fills with ink I stink, hair slick and everywhere a woman bare as so many women before me the clinical disassociates the reality we live Here they think the fight has begun but it's just logistics statistics So take what you need forgive me if I dont march around -though we note the poverty of programmes, funds, locations- I'll sit grounded and try not to shake, to seize, to stutter taking turns to smoke Don't mistake my drug haze for lack of fire it's bedden down, long warm long worn and tired. Don't tell me you've committed resources when you've already failed us. Take what you need and take me home back to my dirty sheets & detritus ffs just take them too... The ink from the empty woman fills my hands and signs who I am more than wounds more than words a person, a self this person, this self these hands, this body this life this spirit who can never be caught between the lines here is where the wonder is were the fight ends do you see that? do you know what this means? These are old truths. So is this- No. No more. Enough. [This poem has been circulated and rewritten by rape survivors over the last decade. This is my iteration.]