Context: I wrote this poem after reading about yet another rape case where the victim took a fusillade of criticism for not being a good enough ‘nice girl’ archetype. I actually saw this comment on a message board:
‘…and yes, her clothing factored into the situation.’
Yes, in the twenty-first century, we still single out rape as a ‘non-crime’ where it’s only wrong if you were wearing muted colors and never swore, hung out with shady people, or had consensual sex. This is my comment on the ‘you asked for it’ culture in poetic form.
It’s not rape, they said, because your heart was beating.
You asked for it a hundred times
with the crude dance of that muscle
One-twenty over eighty, all alive
It’s not rape, they said, because your lungs were working
caressing the air, in and out
It’s not rape they said
because your eyes are neon blue
and just a minute ago
and in the grey fields of neurons
dopamine and adrenaline were dancing
whirling around the mind-grid in reckless exuberance
heating up the wires
they cut off the line and left thought and reason hanging
It’s not rape because you were watching the lights
Sweep, whirl, ricochet, and divide
Into seven, red, blue and their sisters
It’s not rape because you said yes
When the strobelights hit your retinas
It’s not rape because you kissed back
When the pounding bass made its way to your ears
It’s not rape because you wear your skin
where a wire matrix would do
because you spread your wings, when feet would be enough
Because you bleed when cut. The red is ours.
Irony. Right to the medulla oblongata.
I’ve been wanting for a while to write some sort of piece on the subject of irony, both about what irony actually is and how the concept gets thrown around at will in everyday discourse both in life and over the internet.
The word has taken on a distorted meaning of late. The term ‘irony’ has become a free pass to be childishly sexist, racist, homophobic, or otherwise offend people for the hell of it. People throw around disturbing jokes that make you feel outright endangered and then excuse them with ‘It’s ok, I was being ironic’. I remember posting on a metal forum where sexism and racism ricocheted through the air like shrapnel about once per second, and was treated as harmless humor. But if I did it back, even in obviously joking form, or complained, I was told to ‘grow up and learn to recognize irony’ or asked if I was autistic.
That’s not what actual irony is. Dictionary definition: ‘the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning’. That’s what it’s all about – saying one thing FOR EFFECT when you are in fact stating the opposite. A perfect example of genuine irony: I was discussing abortion on a message board and one poster complained that women in general were ’selfish’. Another poster countered with: ‘Yes…women are so selfish. That’s why most carers of the sick are women.’ Remember…irony is when you say one thing for effect when you obviously mean another…right? It is not a free pass to be gratuitously bigoted and then take it back whenever someone calls you on it.
Here is a piece of poetry I wrote on the subject:
Did I cut, with my words, a compound wound
Severing, wildly and at will
Fine knots and webs of your visceral nerves
That nature carefully wound and laid in place
One at a time, under a microscope
With her own fingers?
I’m sorry, not that I pierced you, but that you fail
To understand me.
Don’t you know the blood isn’t real?
Don’t you know the shock is just a word
Just ones and zeros spilling from my brain
Leaving my mouth like butterflies.
I didn’t even mean it anyway.
You hurt my eyes with the hyperworld red of your blood.
I think you should apologize.
And don’t tell me I punctured, by mistake
Your wing membranes.
You chose to spread the long bones of your arms
Expose that fragile leather of your wings
Please don’t play the victim. Seal your wounds shut.
You chose, after all, to bleed –
The blade was not real metal – it was only words…