rape

everything is not ok

if i weren’t like the cat with 9 lives or the phoenix always rising from the ashes, i would be dead right now, because the last week has slain me.

the news, the incessant news of another woman victimized, disregarded, disdained… this time she actually has a name, something more than just another statistic.

anene booysen.

only 17 and discarded on a pile of rubble like so much rubbish. RIP anene. you deserved so much more.

i have been taking a mental health break from my accidental activism, but this makes it impossible to stay silent. and like i said on twitter this evening, every time i talk about rape on my time-line, i suspect that people go, “oh, there she goes again”. well i don’t care. i didn’t choose to be the poster-child for rape survivors. i don’t create the news. i don’t rape. but i sure as hell can not keep quiet about the horrors happening all around us. like prime-media’s campaign the other day, setting off a ping every 4 minutes… ping….ping….ping….ping….ping. ad nauseum. infinitum.

i’m angry and i’m sad and i’m outraged. maybe this will get people galvanized enough to start changing things.

maybe.

this is a poem i wrote the last few days.

“everything is not ok.”
 
i’m a survivor
 
a survivor who after silence
has found her voice
do the things i say
make you flinch
make you uncomfortable
no apologies
because rape      is       uncomfortable
imagine the discomfort of being ripped apart 
 
it is     not     comfortable
it is not        ok
 
it’s an outrage
 
and when i read about 
a little baby in a back room
a grandmother in a shack
yet another girl on a bus
a girl treated like just so much rubble on a construction site
 
violated yet again
by men who think
that our secrets are theirs to flay open
that  what  we are 
are theirs to claim and maim and scar and discard
another statistic 
in an endless mobius strip of numbers
looping escher-like
into infinity
 
it makes me want to scream 
and rage 
and yell that something must be done.
so i am using my voice 
i am the alarm going off next door
the screeching siren that says
the windows of someone’s soul have been shattered
a holy portal broken into
the doors broken down
another temple violated
 
this is not okay
 
and i’m going to say so
i’m going to keep saying it 
i’m going to keep up the clarion call to rise up 
to stand together to ward off this nightmare
to do     something
to make a change
i’m going to shout about this
till everybody listens
 
and i’m not going to shut up