Button Poetry

For The Rapists That Called Themselves Feminist

Poem by Blythe Baird

Perhaps this body belongs to the first time I was raped,
And I think about how fucked up it is to begin a sentence with "The first time I was raped"
And how when I talk to other women about this it almost seems like it's not even if you've been assaulted, but when.
See women have so much in common, like loving zumba, being interrupted, experiencing violence
And when another male friend turns out to be a rapist, the same male friends who wore 'feminism' across his chest like a pageant sash.
I can't help but remember meeting him at a sexual violence prevention rally, and the disappointing irony

And when another male friend who identifies as a feminist gives himself permission to make a rape joke, and call it reclamatory, as if he doesn't already catcall the girl who jogs by his house every day to remind her that she is just a woman, just a thing he can exert power over, just a guest in what has always been his world, his streets.
Never mind that your joke just made a survivor relive what was likely the worst thing to ever happen to them
And you scratch your head, wonder why women are so scared to report, while you shrug your shoulders and make our trauma into your victory lap
The reason you fist-bump your friends at the bar.
How could I expect this body to be perfect for anything but the punchline?
And if I don't laugh, I am not longer the cool girl, but the one who can't take a joke.
I have run out of compassion for men who pose as feminists, but when a woman brings up the sexual assault epidemic, they suddenly want to talk about something else, something less of a downer.
I have run out of compassion for wolves. I have run out of compassion for anyone who isn't outraged.
I ran, and this stubborn body followed. I am the opposite of forgiveness. I am all rage and shriek and flame.
Outside of the women's freshman dormitory at Yale, fraternity pledges chanted:

"NO MEANS YES, YES MEANS ANAL, I FUCK DEAD WOMEN, AND FILL THEM WITH MY SEMEN"

A woman is found unconscious behind a dumpster, pine needles in her hair, naked, wounded, assaulted
Meanwhile, meanwhile everyone is more concerned with how this experience has taken away her assailants appetite, rather than the survivors autonomy.
This is not to say all men are hungry.
This is not even to say that all men are hunting.
But haven't we all found the bones of a woman stuck like leftovers between a full mans teeth?
There is a fraternity in Minnesota that paints the stone lions outside their front door the color of the panties of the last girl they successfully assaulted.

You call this rape culture?
I call it this morning.
Shit, I was catcalled four times on the way here.
If my trauma were made into an art museum, the most popular exhibit would showcase portraits of every man who has ever assaulted me, snarling.
The smell of his sweat on my pillowcase follows me to sociology and the whole class can tell that most days, I am more victim than I am survivor.

In this room, I try to write a poem about anything other than my sexual assault, but all that comes out is my throat in his hands.

A few hours before one of my best friends raped me on our college campus, we discussed the prospect of astral projection.
He couldn't understand why I wanted to experience it so badly.

"Why would anyone want to leave their body?" he laughed

And in this moment, we had nothing in the world in common.