Ask Your Brother Why – HeartStorm 5/31 *Triggar Warning

Hi. It’s late. This piece is rough cut and it cuts rough. So a gentle warning. It is speaking to s. violence and calling out the problems with a lot of dialogues that I see happen. I have not been able to call these out in person and this poem will develop into a more harnessed and clear vision. But this is where today is at for me. While writing this  I also came across this video posted. PLEASE watch it. Clearly she is quoting in parts, but this is what I MEAN. A 13 yr old girl talking about slut shaming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXH2K7OC37s&feature=youtu.be

_____ Ask Your Brother Why

I know it’s not all of you, my brothers
but there are still those who ask questions like

why don’t you women raise your standards
why do you think everyone wants your sex
why do you permit this treatment in the bedroom

I don’t see them
asking their kinsmen

what they are doing to prevent rape

We are a culture that has taught men to walk
on their fists and woman to speak
like they are eating glass.

We are stronger and gentler
than three am would have us believe.

Not everybody’s drunk with biceps,
estrogen is not a synonym for victim.

All us people on the clothesline
strung between tenement apartments
trying to map out home. I get it.

Our bodies are peg and the thin wire, not
the living room. We are the connect-the-dots
leaping between tall buildings.

But it is not our responsibility
to play gate keeper
us of the same sky and iron, same laughter
one constellations in these bodies that lights
from the inside

when you decide to break into a home
you are the criminal. This is obvious.

Is it obvious? Are we overcomplicating it
like a magician might throw a rabbit

in your face while he finds the right card to placate you.
And the court choir sing shame like a quiet
holiday greeting. Obvious gives Apathy a French braid
and then we all get quiet. Mouths cut glass knowing

tomorrow will be easier quiet.

Walking home through brick crescent, sheets flying in midnight wind
all the windows in the street are punched through.

Everyone on the block has been robbed.

But they still ask you why you are nervous.

I know this is not all of you, brothers. I have seen the
grace of so many one-day fathers admit there is no

way for them to understand
without adding the word “But.”

While others debate about the relevance of feminism then accidently Speak for the Speechless. Maybe offer Advice on

Strategies for Preventing Sexual Assault like Learn to Identify Danger Better.

But I still don’t see them                              asking their kinsmen

what they are doing to prevent rape.

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