Monday, June 25, 2018

Somebody Else's Kind of Sad

Somebody else
Gave me a block of sadness
And told me to live with it

Here you go—

Up onto my plate

Take this
And swallow it down

Ten times the tears
Full up the bucket
And away we go

You get small
You get big
You forget yourself

You forget
A lot of things

Cold hard street
Sidewalk chalk
And a post office box
With no mail in it

You might think
I’m going to be
Park bench surfing
For the rest of my life

But the rest
Ain’t much of a rest
No matter how many pillows
You put on the bench

See, someone like me
I get affected
By the attitudes
Around me

That’s how I wound up
Two brown jackets
And a hat made out of paper

That’s how come
People think
I should be
Locked away

That’s how come
I’m smart
But savage

Dusty and dirty
And divine
Like the good Christ said—

He was a dirty
Motherfucker too
You know

No matter how many halos
They go putting
Around his head

See, a long time ago
I got somebody else’s sadness
Somebody else's
Kind of sad

And I fell down faster
Than the Panama Bridge

Saw so much sky
I almost didn’t get up

You ever hear of a man
Drowning
In his own clouds?

That was me

I was the Ocean King
I was the Saturn Prince
I was the Duke of the Everlasting Universe

And that was a-okay
For today
And every day

But you know…

The pit you get used to
In your chest
Is only accommodated
By your psyche

Not your heart

Not the things in you
That search for space
And love
And understanding

A heart takes up a lot of room
Almost as much as breath

And when you got
That sadness in you
That doesn’t belong

That your soul
Seeks to reject

The bile won’t break down
And the gut won’t ungutter
And the beating blood
That makes you up
Runs dry

And your only choice
Is to take what you’ve been given
And give it
To somebody else

. . . . .

And I wouldn’t do that

So I’ll keep laying on my benches
Sheltering myself
Against the black and gold waves

Hoping it all lifts off me

Thinking I used to be happy
Thinking I used to tell myself jokes
Thinking I never had
To remember
To smile

I just had to remember
To be

And all that
Was enough

The Damsel

I was sitting in my tower
Finishing my still life
And I see the knight
Coming yon hillside
And I thought—

Oh great
Oh here we go

Because knights are always
Coming to rescue me
And they all get eaten
By the dragon

I’ve seen so many knights eaten
That it doesn’t even phase me anymore

The sound of cracking bone
Between a dragon’s jaw
Produces nothing more from my lips
Than a groan

I wish they’d just stop

Oh sure, it would have been nice
To be rescued a few years ago
Before I discovered painting
But now that I have
I’m perfectly content

And the dragon doesn’t bother me
On the contrary
Who do you think brings me
All the food I eat
And the outfits I get to wear?

The dragon may be a reptile
But she has a distinctly mammalian
Sense of style

Why yes, she’s a female
A female dragon
She has the most gorgeous wings

When they’re fully extended?

Breath-taking

I have no idea
Why she doesn’t want me
To leave the tower

But before I was kidnapped
My parents always told me
That what your oppressors think of you
Is none of your business

That’s sort of the wisdom
That gets imparted to you
When your father is a tyrant

I can’t believe I would have fared much better
If the dragon hadn’t abducted me

Either I would have been married off
To a barbaric prince
From a neighboring kingdom

Or locked in the southern part of the castle
Like Poor Cousin Beatrice
With those fingernails that wouldn’t stop growing

The way I see it
Trapped in a tower
In a far away land
With plenty of art supplies
Isn’t such a bad way
To spend your time

The dragon spends most of her days
Fetching me things and sleeping
So when I don’t want to feel so isolated
I just pretend that I have a very large dog
Who occasionally eats men in shining armor

I tried to yell down
To the last knight

I begged him to turn around
And go find a girl
Who wasn’t secluded-yet-satisfied
But I assume he couldn’t hear me
Under his little helmet

He tried jamming his sword
Into the dragon’s belly
And a second later
He was lunch

What are they teaching these knights
In school nowadays?

You don’t aim for the belly
You aim for the big toe
On the uppermost right foot

Everybody knows that

If only I could save myself
If only I desired saving

My still life is of a tower
Without a damsel in it

So lonely
So languid

So listless
As the breeze goes by
And the wind chimes whistle
And the dragon in the grass
Holds back her fire

The painting is a way for me
To see my own life
Without me in it

And it doesn’t seem so grand
To tell you the truth

I’d much prefer to stay where I am
As I am
While the riders appear
On the horizon

Carrying swords
Galloping towards me
Confident they’ll be the one
To slay the dragon
And save me
From my scenario

But then what?
--I’d like to ask them

Once you save me
Then what shall I be to you?

No longer a damsel in distress
Just…

…A damsel

And do I know how to be
Such a thing?

Does anybody?

We all know what to do
When we’re imprisoned

But do any of us know what to do
When we’re set free?

In the Fall

Everybody’s already talking about
How excited they are
To start college in the fall
And I’m…

Hang on, I'm sorry
I shouldn't have just--

Started like--

Uh

Can I start again or does it--?

Okay, so it doesn't?

Okay

He’s going to the same school as me

And I was really excited about it too
That’s the crazy part

I was looking forward to us
Going there together
Because I thought, um--

I thought that
He was really cute
And I thought…

How much am I allowed to say about him?

Like, am I going to get you in trouble or—

Okay, so…

He’s really artistic
He has long brown hair
He plays in this band, and—

And he’s very—socially conscious

Like when #MeToo started
He was very supportive
Of all the girls who were posting it
And calling out guys
Who girls were talking about
And that was—

That was really
What I liked most about him
Because I just thought—

Wow, like how amazing
That a guy could be that supportive
To a cause like that

And, um
After the thing that--

After what he did
He begged me
Not to say anything

And I didn’t get that

Why didn’t he just stop or--

And then we wouldn’t have to—

But he tried to act like
He was drunk
And he wasn’t

He had, like, one drink
I saw him
I saw him have one drink
And then I saw him, like—

Pretend to be drunk

And I thought it was weird
But I didn't get what he was doing
And he's, you know, he's kind of weird
He's kind of a weird guy
Like, interesting weird
So, I don't know
I just didn't think anything of it really

And so when he asked me to walk him home
Because we were at my friend’s house
And he lives a block down from where she lives
And then I’m two blocks over
And, um, he asked me to walk with him
And I said ‘Oh, I’ll walk with you’

Because it was fine
He was cool
It wasn't a big deal
Even though I knew he was faking
With, um, being intoxicated

When we got to his house
He wanted me to come in
And he said something cute about, like
Putting him to bed
Or something
And it didn’t seem sexual at all
So I thought it was fine
Because even though I liked him, I—

I just wasn’t thinking of that

Like, we weren’t even dating
I just thought he was cute

We went inside
And as soon as we were in his bedroom
That was it

And...

I mean, how much do you want to know
About--

I'll just--

I screamed at the beginning
I did
I was like ‘Get off me’
And I screamed it
Really loud
I can't believe nobody heard me
And—

He kept going
So him being like—

I was drunk
I didn’t know

Well, he's lying
He's lying about that

And even if he wasn't lying
So what?

You’re going to rape girls
Every time you get drunk?

And he was like—

Nobody will believe you
Everybody knows me
They know how I am
Nobody would believe
I’d do something like that

And it was like—

It was like
He didn’t even believe it

What he did

But I thought maybe he was right about
Telling other people
And I just—

School was pretty much over
And I just wanted to put it behind me

That was…

That was a few months ago
And, uh—

I still have really bad anxiety
I have nightmares
I can’t be, uh, alone
But also, like, being with people is—

I have pains
Where the bruises were—still

I’m really jumpy
And I was never like that before

Someone went to give me a hug
And I jumped, like, ten feet

This guy I'm dating now
--It's like really hard for me to date
But, I met this guy
And he's really nice
But us being affectionate with each other is--

It's just really difficult

Sometimes I get really sick
And I throw up
For no reason

A lot of stuff just—

There are just a lot of things
That are difficult for me now
That I would have never--

And I'm going to see him

In the fall

I mean, I just know I am

It's not even about--

Someone said something about
Feeling unlucky or something
And I'm like--

No, it's not even about that
I just know I'm going to see him

I just know it

And I don't know
What I'm going to do
When I--

And so I'm having all this anxiety
And, like, all my friends
Are so excited
To start college
And just, um, start this brand new life

You know, it's supposed to be
The best years of your life
And I'm--

I'm not feeling that way at all

I'm dreading it

It hasn't even started yet
And I get sick
Just thinking about that first day

Just thinking about seeing him
I'm--

I'm not sure what I'm going to do

But I think about seeing
All those people
The students
Moving into the dorms
And going to class and, um--

It feels like they're going to be kids

And I--

I feel so different
From them

Not even older, just--

Different

Everything about me, I--

I just want to know
If I should even bother

Um...

Going to college
Or just...

I'm talking to someone now
About these, uh, how I'm feeling
But--

It's still there
Every day

This feeling of--

How much longer, you know?

How much longer
Do I have to feel
This way?

How much longer
Until I'm me again, or, uh--

But...

That's the thing

I don't...

I don't know if I can get back to
That person
That I was

I don't...

I don't even remember, really
Who she was

And is that--

Is that, like, because of what happened
Or is it just--

Growing up?

Like, would I have changed anyway?

I don't know

I, uh...

Is that enough?

Can we--

Okay, thank you

I'm sorry

No, I know I don't have to--

I'm trying to stop
With that
With saying 'Sorry'

I just--

I don't know

After what happened
It's all I say now

Isn't that weird, like--

All I say is 'Sorry'

And why?

Like, what am I sorry for?

What did I do wrong?

Saturday, June 23, 2018

Good Kids

I’m obsessed
With following trials

And it’s a morbid obsession
But also a really frustrating one
Because usually I’m let down
Pretty much all the time
But I can’t stop myself
I keep watching

I think it’s because
I never pursued any kind of
Legal action
Against my attacker
So I get some kind of satisfaction
Out of seeing those smug assholes
Sitting in a courtroom
Being forced to answer
For what they did
Right before the case gets dismissed
And they get to go be
Whatever corporate lawyer
They’re going to turn out to be

Do you care if I smoke?

Okay, great
Thanks

I keep saying I’m going to quit
And then it’s summer
And nobody quits smoking
In the summer

Why would you do that?

So anyway—

I was really fascinated
With the Brock Turner trial
And when the mom—

When his mom
Wrote that fucking letter
Talking all about how—

I call it ‘The Good Kid’ letter

Because that happens a lot
Believe it or not

The parent—

Usually the mom—

Writing a letter
All about how her son
Is a good kid

And I guess they have the mom write it
Because it’s like—

Hey everybody
Here’s a woman who doesn’t have a problem with the fact
That her son is a rapist
So who are we to judge?

It’s sickening

If my son ever rapes a girl
They won’t need to have a trial
I will handle that shit
Myself

Although who knows
Maybe Brock Turner’s mother
Said the same thing

But the letter
Always says the guy
Is a good kid
And so why ruin his life
Over this?

And forget that
The girl’s life
Is already ruined

Maybe they’re saying
Why ruin two lives?

It’s infuriating

For so many reasons

And the one that I find really interesting
Is this idea that
Good kids can’t be rapists

Like, that’ll take you down a whole path of—

Don’t they know
Good people do bad shit
All the time?

Good people
Rape people

Good people
Steal

Good people
Murder other people

You can be a good person
Your whole life
And make one mistake
And it can be a big mistake
And at that point
Maybe you’re still a good person
But you’re also a rapist

Perpetuating that guy in an alley
With a trenchoat idea
Of what a rapist is
Is part of why we still have fucking rape happening

And on these college campuses
Where you’re talking about nineteen-year-old boys
Who nowadays look twelve
Because of the preservatives
In the food they’re eating or something

Of course these girls feel totally safe with them
At parties
Getting drunk
Or just being alone with them
And never stop to think about
Their own security

Because these guys—
These boys
Seem like good people

What we need to start saying is—

Men do bad shit

All men

And not to bash men
But to save women

And don’t get me wrong
I am a big proponent of
Women doing whatever they want to
Without needing to fear being raped
But until we get something done
We just need to be honest with girls and say—

Beware of men, ladies

Beware of men
Beware of boys
Beware of anybody
Because this is the world

You are living in the world
And the world is not your friend

Boys who look like twelve-year-olds
Are raping girls
Sometimes it’s their best friend

And they’re doing it
At parties
Behind dumpsters
While they’re unconscious

And after they’re done
And they get caught
Their mothers are writing
Letters of recommendation
For them

To keep them
From having their lives ruined

It is infuriating

But we have to change the language

We have to be honest and say—

There are no good kids

There are just young men
Who haven’t made a mistake yet
And you don’t want to be the person
They make it with

You don’t want to be the mistake
Because that’s how they’ll treat you

Like a mistake

Like something that just—

Got in the way
Of this good kid
And his bright future

So you better stay vigilant

We better be telling all girls
To keep
Their eyes open

That’s it

That’s it

That’s the only thing
We can do

And you know I…

I wish somebody had told me all this

I didn’t need to hear a lot of things
Because ultimately
Most of it?

Didn’t help me

But ‘Watch out for those fuckers?’

Just somebody saying that?

That I could have used

Nobody Said It Would Be Like That

It wasn’t anything
Like I thought
Something like that would be

Um…

After it happened
I didn’t even think that…

That it was…

I thought—

Well, that sucked

Honestly, that was my first thought

It wasn’t until—

This other girl
That I met
Who was a friend of a friend
Told me that the same thing happened to her
With the same—

Um, with the same guy

That was when I was like—

Well…I guess, um…

The girl was like—

You were raped

And I—

I said ‘No

No, I wasn’t

Because at that time
I really didn’t think—

It didn’t really feel that way
Based on what I thought
That would feel like

So basically
My experience
With it was—

It was this feeling of—

Why is this guy
Not stopping?

Why is he—

Why is this happening
And then—

I guess I just shut down
I mean—

I’ve never done that before
Just—taken myself out of—

Out of where I was
But that’s what I did

I don’t remember
All of what happened
But I don’t remember
Feeling like
This guy was going to kill me
Or that he was, uh—

A bad guy

Like, I thought—

Maybe he doesn’t understand
That I don’t want this
So I said ‘Stop’

I do remember
Saying ‘Stop’

And he didn’t stop

And I said, uh
I remember telling him ‘No’
A couple of different ways
And trying to push him off
And—

It was really like he—

Like he just ignored me

It—

It was like I wasn’t even there

Like he was—

He was just with himself

And I thought—

My mind went to—

How do I get through this?

So I checked out
And it was easy
Because he seemed
Kind of checked out too

And then when it was over
We, um…

We went and got a drink

And we didn’t talk about it

We never talked about it

I still, um, saw him
For about a month after that
And then, I just—

Every time I would see him
I would think about it
And I didn’t want to think about it anymore
So I stopped returning his calls
And, uh, at that point
He did get a little, uh, aggressive again
But, uh, not in a scary way
And so I just—

But it really stuck with me
For a long time
And, uh, in a way that
If it hadn’t…

If it hadn’t been something…

What it was

I don’t think
It would have stuck with me
Like that

Because the thing
That rings out
In my head
Isn’t him
But it’s me
It’s my voice

The sound of my voice
Asking him to stop

That’s what—

That’s what really
I—I can’t get away from

Even after all this time

But I didn’t want to say
It was rape

I didn’t—

I really didn’t want to say that

I mean, who would?

Who would want to say
That happened to them?

And if you don’t think—

Uh...

Because nobody said
It would be like that
And so--

If you think
It means one thing
And it ends up
Being something
So—different
From what your opinion
Of that experience would be
It’s—

It’s even harder

It’s even harder
To accept

So it took me a long time

It took me a long time
To accept
That that’s what it was

And then it was like—

It was like
Having to go through it
All over again

It's Not About Your Daughter

Can I just say this?

I fucking love it
When they make it about their daughters

About the fact
That they have daughters

Like, what the fuck
Does that have to do with anything?

You’ve got a daughter
I had a mother
My father had a sister
Like, who the fuck cares?

What does that have to do
With forcing yourself on someone?

They go—

I have a daughter
So this is appalling to me

So you’re saying it wouldn’t be appalling to you
If you didn’t have a daughter?

Or that you have some deeper understanding of it
Because you have a daughter?

Or some kind of
Deeper sympathy?

Fuck you 

No, you don’t

No
You
Don’t

It's not about your daughter

My rape
Is not about
Whether or not
You have a fucking daughter 

If you have never been raped
You have no understanding
Of what it is
To be raped

Period
Full stop on that one

You having a daughter
Won’t help you understand it

You having a daughter
Who’s been raped
Won’t help you understand it

And I don’t wish—

I don’t wish what I went through
On anybody

But these people
Who are jockeying to be
The biggest rape victim supporter
And they start out with—

‘I have two daughters and I can’t imagine—’

What about just saying
You can’t imagine
Somebody taking your power
Away from you

Covering your mouth
Slapping you
And telling you
That if you scream
They’re going to cut your throat

They don’t want to talk about any of that stuff
And—and I’m going to get in trouble for saying this
Unless you—You’re not using our names, right?

Okay, you’re not using our names
So I’m just going to say it then

I don’t think some of these men
Are uncomfortable with the details
Of what happened to us

I think they’re ashamed
Because secretly
They’ve thought
About doing
The exact same thing

They have fantasized
About taking control from a woman

You see these guys online
They’re vocalizing it

They’re coming right out
And saying how much
They’d like to hold a woman down
And show her who’s boss

That’s coming from a place
Deep inside them
And it doesn’t get erased
Because some guy
Has a daughter
Or was raised by a single mom
Or grew up with three sisters

That doesn’t mean a fucking thing

Because you think every mother
Teaches her son
The correct way to treat women?

You daughters are some magical creature
That just give you insight
And empathy
And take away
Whatever that thing is in men
That make them want to destroy shit?

Men are violent
They are prone to violence
And when you try to suppress that—

Suppress it but not address it?

That’s just going to go somewhere else

That’s just going to pick up a gun
And shoot up a school
Because it doesn’t go away

Every man who ever raped a woman
Had a mother
And it didn’t mean a fucking thing

You don’t get empathy
By accident

It’s something
You have to drill into people
Because we went thousands of years
Without it

That’s a whole other tangent, but uh—

I just had to talk about that

Because every time I hear it

The line about the daughters, dude

It just—

It just makes me
Want to hurt somebody

And after everything I said
I know, I—

But I hear that bullshit

And fuck

It gets me really fucking mad

The Things They Asked Me

And when I wanted to get him expelled
I had to go before this committee
Of these—

I think it was four men
Four white men
Older guys
And, uh, maybe three women?

And they didn’t talk, by the way
The women

They didn’t talk the entire time
So I don’t even know
Why they were there

Just for presentation, probably
They probably grabbed a few women
Off the street
And just sat them there
So they could say
I had a fair hearing

And they asked me questions
That were—

Well, as they were asking them
To me—

And maybe there’s a record of this
I don’t know
I’m sure there is, but—

I don’t—

I wouldn’t keep that on me
Or anything

I do remember
A lot of the questions though

They wanted to know
How long I had known him

They wanted to know
How much I’d been drinking
At the event we were at

They called it a party
It was not a party
It was just a small gathering
For the department
It was not some rave
Where people were getting
Drunk and high
Not that that matters at all

But I could tell the kind of—

This is the worst part
Is that you can tell
What kind of narrative
They’re setting up
And, in reality, there is no narrative
Where what he did is okay

But you’re kind of—

Negotiating the narrative
So that you wind up
With the result you want
And in order to do that
You sort of have to quietly concede
That there are some instances
Where what he did
Would be somewhat justified

And that, believe me, is the worst fucking part
Of the whole thing

So they’re asking me
About the party
I say ‘It wasn’t a party’

They asked me about
What I wore

Of course

Was I flirting with him?
Did I touch him?
Do I remember telling him
That I wanted to have sex with him

Then they rephrase the question
So it’s—

Did I remember telling him
That I wanted to have intercourse with him

Oral sex with him

That I wanted him to get naked with him

All of that

Like an interrogation

It was an interrogation
They were interrogating me

You know, you hear stories
About lawyers
Who used blaming the victim

This was—

They were supposed to be
An independent body
Or commission or whatever
Looking into this
And determining
What sort of punishment
He should have
And instead
They’re acting like his fucking lawyers

Have I used drugs before?
Had I used drugs that night?
Why do I think he did this?

They asked me
What I thought
His motivation was

Think about asking someone
The victim of a crime
Why they think
It happened to them

It’s like—

Don’t you think
I wish
I knew?

And I also wanted to say, to ask—

And why are you doing this to me?

This—

This inquisition
About my rape

Why is this happening?

And he didn’t get expelled
He didn’t even get suspended

He got some kind of mark on his record
That—who knows if it’ll even go on his record
I mean, I’ll never know

I’ll never know if it doesn’t

That was my experience
With them
With the school

And they made it very clear
That after they came to their decision
They wanted me to shut up

I mean, I felt threatened
From them, that panel of—

And from other people

There were threats

I can’t really go into it, but—

Trust me

There were threats
Aside from that

We live in a society
Where not only is it okay
For a man to rape you
But don’t you dare
Try to hold him accountable for it

Don’t you dare
Try to say it was wrong

There is a system set up
And that system
Is there for him

And, so, when you see this tidal wave
Of women now coming out
And saying ‘This is a problem’
And you hear other people saying—

Well, why does it have to be a tidal wave?

Why does it have to happen
At such a gigantic and, uh, seismic level—

It’s because we’re not just trying to root out
One or two guys
Who are bad—

Who are bad people

We are trying
To disrupt
A system

A system that would sit a woman down
And ask her if she asked her rapist
To rape her

They asked me
If I like rough sex

If I like aggressive sex

If, at any point while I was being raped,
I told him it felt good

That’s what we’re up against

Those are—

Those are the questions
We’re being asked, and—

And you wonder why somebody would look at that
And go ‘No thanks’

And stay silent

And just—

Just not try to do anything?

I wish I had done nothing

I wish I had just…

Never said anything
And just—

Just kept it
To myself

Smaller Than I've Ever Been

The visualization I use
Is about becoming bigger

I tried a lot of techniques
And that was the one
That calmed me down the most

Just thinking of myself
As bigger
Because, um,
That’s something—

Size

That’s something
That makes me feel, um—

I just felt really small
For—while it was happening
And also afterwards

I just shrunk
I mean, that’s how it felt
Like I had just—

Like I…

As if I were, you—
Almost invisible

Uh—

And there was a physical
Feeling to it
Not just, um—

I’m not just talking
Psychologically
Or, like, what was in my head

There was an actual
Feeling to this
That I felt
Where I would just—

Like, my body would
Cave it on itself

That’s how it felt

And there were all these health problems
I was having
That were not the result of
What happened
And people were talking to me
Like it was, um, psychosomatic
And, um, I thought that might be it too
And I’m sure, in a way, it was
But also, I remember thinking—

My organs are collapsing
My body is collapsing
In on itself

I know what’s going on

I know what’s happening to me

But you can’t say that to doctors
That you’re shrinking
You know, I—

I didn’t feel like
Being sent back to the—

I spent time in the—

After it happened
I spent time, um—

I had to get my head back
You know?

I was—

I was in really rough shape, but—

This was separate
From what—

Like, there were things
When I was dealing with—

Mental, um, things
That—

That were real

Real problems

And this problem
Was not that

This problem was something—

But it’s hard to tell, you know?

Obviously

After you’ve had actual mental problems
Your judgment is just gone
When you’re thinking about—

What’s real and what isn’t

But I just knew
That I felt so small

I—

I felt smaller
Than I’d ever been
In my life

So when I started doing the visualization
That’s what I tried to fix

I tried to change my perception
Of how big I actually was

It was like—

Like, I thought I was doing magic or something

By—by—

By actually
Willing myself
To grow bigger

And, um, I’m still working on it

It’s still something
I do every day
That—

That makes me feel better, um…

A little better

Better than I was
Before I did it

It’s really, um—

It’s really the only thing
That does make me feel better

It’s the only thing that’s managed to, um—

To give me some of that power back?

To make me feel like
Maybe one day
I’ll be strong again

Because I really, um, before this
I would have categorized myself
As someone
Who was really strong
And now—

Now I just don’t feel that way anymore

Yeah, so…

So that’s something
I’d like to have back

Monday, June 18, 2018

Immune

I’m going to confess something to you
And then I don’t really want to say
Anything else

And it’s not because I don’t like you
Or this project
You seem nice
But I just have one thing to say
And I’m going to say it
And that’s going to be it

Okay?

Okay, so—

I used to be one of those people
Who thought that one of the ways
You prevented, uh, getting attacked
Was to watch how you dress

I’m a very conservative dresser
And just overall a pretty conservative person
And I just never saw myself
Being in a situation
Where anything would happen to me
Because I thought it was about the kind of choices you make
About, uh, where you go
And who you hang out with

And how you present yourself
To the world
That kind of thing

I felt pretty confident
That I would never find myself
In a position
Where I would be, uh
In any kind of trouble
Because, again, you know
I’m very old-fashioned

Always have my boyfriend with me
Always have my wits about me
I don’t drink—at all

Not at all

And so when, um…

Okay, so what should I tell you
About this
That’ll…

My boyfriend was the one

He was the one who, uh
Who did it

And at the time
We were at this party
And he had been drinking
But not much
And, uh
I was wearing—

Gosh, I think I was wearing
Like a sweater
It was winter
And I had just had a cold
And my hair wasn’t—

I did not want to go to this party
I remember telling him, my boyfriend—

We had only been together—

It was new
It was a newer thing
We had been together
For about two months
Met at another party
And he was great
He was a good guy
I thought
You know
I thought he was

And I didn’t want to go to this party
Because I remember thinking
I looked a mess

I mean, that was exactly
How I thought about it

But I go with the flow
When it comes to the guys I date
And what they want to do

So we went to the party
And it was fine
I made the best of it
Even though I really
Just wanted to go home

And so we go back to his apartment
And when we get there
He immediately is just—

Very all over me
Very pushy

And I sort of laugh at first
Like, I think he’s joking
And then, uh
It becomes very clear
That he’s not joking

And I notice that the more I’m resisting
The more he’s, uh, getting pushy
And kind of—

It was like he was trying
To overpower me

And he’s got, uh, quite a lot of weight on me
He’s like twice my size

And this wasn’t even happening
In his bedroom

This was on the floor
In his kitchen
Like—

On his kitchen floor
And I—

I only wanted to say
That I was, uh—

The argument about—

Because he used it
That argument
Probably because
We had actually talked about it
About how neither one of us believed these girls
Who wear this or that
And then get raped
Because it’s like—

Well watch yourself
Watch how you present yourself

But he’s full of it
Because there I was
On his kitchen floor
Not looking any kind of way at all

And I feel terrible
About what I used to say

I feel like a piece of you-know-what
Because that was stupid of me

I’ve met so many women and—

And that’s what I wanted to say

It’s got nothing to do with anything
But that guy
And whatever it is
He wants to take from you
And when he wants it
And the fact that he thinks
You owe it to him

I could have been wearing
An astronaut suit
And he would have done
The same damn thing

I was his girlfriend
And so he could do whatever he wanted
And he was older than me
Had his own apartment
And he’s good-looking
I won’t say he wasn’t
But he thought that all that
Meant he had the right
To do whatever he wanted
Not just to me either
But just—as a way of life

That he could have it all
And have it how he wanted it
And I helped with that

Right up to when
He threw me on the floor
I was telling him
That everything he thought
Was right
And that I was his
And I just—

I just gave away my power
I just gave it away

It doesn’t mean I’m to blame
But—

But I’m mad that I thought
I was immune to what happened to me

That anybody is immune

I thought if I trusted men
Really trusted them
And let them know
That I trusted them
They would feel responsible
For protecting me

And that’s not how it works

Once they know you’re vulnerable—

And we’re all vulnerable
That’s the thing
We all are

No matter who you are
Or how you think about…

We’re all in the same boat

That’s what I think

That’s what I think now

Fault

I guess the craziest thing to me
Was this obsession with fault

This kind of—

Everybody trying to pick apart
Whose fault it is
That they did it

The two guys

There were two of them
In my case

Uh, and I knew one of them
I didn’t know the other
I don’t know if that’s—

I don’t know if you’re looking
For information
Or just my feelings about—

Well, don’t tell me
I can talk about anything
Then you’ll never shut me up
I have a lot to say
About all this

I wasn’t really that talkative
Before all this
But now it’s like—

If I’m not the one talking
Nobody’s talking
Because nobody wants to talk
About all this

Not the act itself anyway
Just the fault

So basically what happened was
There was all this discussion
Towards me
It felt like it was—

Like it was at me?

About why these two guys
Who I guess came from
Really nice families
And had been doing really well in school
And no behavioral issues with either of them
Up to that point
Would, uh, you know—

I mean it was gang rape, really

The way it happened
The way it was, um, done
By the two of them

It was very aggressive

This was not accidental

This was not—

There was no question
Of what they were doing

I was unconscious

That was the part where, um
Some of the blame
The fault
Was, um, you know
People tried to put it on me

Because I got drunk
And passed out
In my room

In my room, yeah

Not some common space

And the guys—

The one I knew
And the other one
His friend
I guess
I don’t know
I don’t know who he is
I still really don’t

They came in and just—

And it was really violent

The act—that—

That’s always violent, I mean
But this—

There was clearly
From my point of view
An intention
To hurt me

Not just to—

It wasn’t a sexual thing
For them

I don’t even know
How they can claim it was

Not that rape really ever is
But it’s considered
A sexual crime, okay?

But there was no sex to this

It was a sexual assault
But everything behind it?

That was violent
That was all just violence

And we’re—

Let’s go back a second
Not back in time
But just back to a—

Bigger picture

Something happens
And we all want to know
How it happened
And I think—

I think things just happen
When you have a world
Like the one we have

People just break
Or they snap
Or the violence is there
Beneath the surface
And it comes out

And that’s not me
Excusing the two guys
But it’s more of a—

A condemnation
Of a lot of other forces
That are going on
That we need to address
And deal with, because—

If the way we prevent this from happening
To another girl
Is ‘You do that to a girl and you’re going to jail’

Which, um, barely any guys are, okay?

Barely any guys
Actually experience
Consequences
When this stuff happens

But that aside—

If the way we get this to stop
Is just by making guys scared
That they’ll go to jail
If they do it
Then—I’m sorry

But that’s not good enough for me

This is a dark force
A malevolent force

What these two guys did to me
Was evil

It was coming from a place
Of pure evil

And that’s something bigger
Than just the two of them

That’s why I don’t even care
If they do go to jail
Because it’s not going to fix the problem
It’s not going to stop it from happening again
And all that’s going to happen
Is that people are going to act like
They fixed something

And nothing is fixed

Nothing is going to be fixed

We are living in a world
In a country
Where deep down
Most people don't believe
Women should be having sex
For pleasure

That is a fucking problem
That is a big fucking problem
That jail is not going to fix

You want to talk about fault?

Okay, let's talk about fault

Who's fault is it
That jerking off is funny?

That boys jerking off is funny?

That boys chasing girls
Trying to get laid--

That there are countless movies
All about men--ugly men--who are juggling, like--

Four different hot girlfriends
At a time?

Who's fault is that?

And who's fault is it
That a movie where a woman
Masturbates
Or talks about fucking a guy
Gets an 'R' rating slapped on it so fast--

It's just--

It--

To hear somebody
Try to figure this all out?

It’s crazy to me

The idea that you can figure out
What makes two guys
Rape a sleeping girl
So badly she—

She has to, um—

I’m sorry, but can we stop?

I think I’d like to stop there
If that’s okay