Sunday, January 29, 2006

Uninvited (For the Wounded) (1997)

Note: I choose not to use cursing in any of my poems. This is the only one in which I do because it really is about an act, and not a word. I wrote this because one on every three women is or will be raped in her lifetime....

(For the Wounded)

he didn't ask
what my last name was
or where i was raised
or where my people came from
didn't ask me if i preferred blue notes over red ones
jeans over skirts
tea over wine
didn't ask me if i was subtle or blunt
if i was smiled in pictures
wrote in riddles
or what i wanted to name my daughter
didn't ask if I liked to be held tenderly
or if I wanted to soar above the world
but there, pearls mark the spot where my world was lost

he didn't ask me if i wanted to fuck.

he closed the door to his room
like a new casket
and poked the eye out of my flower
as i lay bleeding
fucking me
for all the things he didn't ask

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