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what do you say to the man who broke your start in life?

what do you say to the women who love him?

what do you say to his children? his mother?

what do you say to his (other) victims?

with whom you share that awful, festering hole.

and who do you say it to?

what do you say when you think you are worth investing in,

but you can't hold it together?

what do you say when you remember how easily you can be (feel) 

reduced to the rubble of your past.

when you thought you had something to offer

and suddenly it feels false?

when you reach for your dignity

and find it has gone missing.

i am woman.

and i will stand

naked

when you have stripped the last shred of dignity from my body or my soul

and defend my innocence

in the glare of your reductive lust.

i am more than you would make of me

and you are less

less than the dust you haven't left me to cover my nakedness.

because i hear what you cannot hear

the whisper of those oppressed before me

by those before you

the whores, the witches, 

the prudes the prostitutes, 

the"companions"and child brides,

the slaves and the sluts

we say they were beaten.

They say they beat the odds

and bore me.

to bear for you the burden of your indignity.

for when you have done your worst to me

i can, 

if i chose, 

walk on