No one is singing.
No one is praising the monster men have created, only by the powerful men themselves are they glorified.
They slither and sneak,
Collect your money, put the change in your hand, and leave you heartless in this male dominant world.
They are grown men, so they inhale deeply the oppression
And exhale with a grin only corporate evils could conjure.
My mother was nearing thirty when a man
Took her by the throat
And whispered her promises of family and belonging.
Not even a year later
We escaped 1,000 miles south just to feel the warmth of the sun.
She would've called 911, but they would say she needed bruises to prove it was happening.
My mother didn't have the evidence,
Yet,
Not until 2 years later could she muster up the courage to ask for help from the justice system.
Before then, she had handled it herself with fire,
Which is exactly what the courts left her to do.
I learned from her how to pick myself up when I fall.
After three years of broken windows, bloodied baseball bats, acidic tongues, and that "don't tell the kids what happened even if they know" silences,
She escaped his grip.
Fast forward six years,
And that life is just a memory now.
A cold chunk of burning ice on my neck to say,
"I'll never let a man touch me like he did her."
