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I have a lousy history of dealing with people.
Known fact.
I tend to wind up in situations where nothing I do is adequate to stop a neverending cycle of pain, angst, agony, and the like. It is very difficult for me to turn away from hurt, but when that hurt starts getting used as a weapon to compel my actions, I become very cruel.
It is only recently that I realized how much I get used by people who see only what I can do for them, and never bother to deal with more than the surface of what I might need.
This poem is to those people, who no longer have the right to leash me to their bawling. I wear no chain not of my own choosing - thankyouverymuch.
Now I understand entirely
- 3 June 1998
Rape Satori
I am only welcome
If I prostitute my soul to your visions -
This daughter
That lover
The other friend;
Bow down to your self-important power
And grovel for the privilege
Of your sainted toe in my ribs.
To dare to need
To have the temerity to have pain
To make such demands
As reciprocation
Support
Understanding
Is to step beyond slave-chains
Into the threat of mastery.
So be it -
I, unchained, now stand;
You have no power over me
And I no longer demand
That tithe of grace
You might once have given.