Insidious
Like a daddy long legs
Insidious
Holds his ground
But there are teams
Who feel the same way
Sharing
and there’s power in voices
You try to silence
When there’s an over population
Of the nothings
That you say we’ve never found
Like a daddy long legs
Insidious
You don’t need to use sticks
To infiltrate and twist
All that is vile about the universe
When there are so many voices
Why does society only listen to his
I sense it. You make me feel off kilter
You claim I’m unbalanced, probably
Like a daddy long legs
Reaching, stretching, tasting
to see what you can get
That men you found who
would r. e
Wanted to be entrapped in your web
You in theirs, that misogyny’s brickwork
Foundations of evil actions
You shared
and built
No consent
You elevated your own importance
What am I saying?
As if you ever needed to
There is no human
Just instruments,
hearts, souls, frozen pieces
That you pick up on
and continue to use
They say not all men
You creep and you slide
Attracted to vulnerability
To what you want
Entitlement over possessions
Not souls
You assume can be lent
All, and any, kindness is a front
You get in there and won’t leave
Into my brain
From girlhood
You are a sticking point
and I want to be glued
You feel you have the right
to dissect me
Grow me of your ego
Incredible women coming forward
They don’t want to have to be incredible
to see you, never fully, get what you deserve
You made them vessels, you took
Entitlement, you have the right to try
and rent
for your sick desires.
This person I’m ‘not permitted’ to say
no to
We all say me too
And you say ‘not all men’
I have to offer myself up for conversation
On the pavement
You question the reality and my own narrative
You try to redefine what is truth
For days and weeks and months and years
Stared at, wondering if imagined it
On the way home from work and life
and school
My uniform isn’t an issue
I am all that is wrong with your world
I should be subservient
Willing to be abused
I tarnish myself with your paintbrush
You are an abomination
Yet, you want ownership
only for you
Society doesn’t want to see my tears
Sisters, wrapped and bathed in them
Pretend it isn’t happening
Living in a constant state of fear
They’d question, even if I had (what they’d deem) definitive proof
In fact, my humiliation
embarrassment, bewilderment
Almost, feels like the kick, the rush, to you
You shame me for my own body
I wonder, how can people behave like this?
Make this house I live in a shell
Convenient that my anger is
abhorrent to you
I can’t be me
I am me, women they aren’t you
Feels like, now, like this vacant soul
I, bodywork
You make yourself mechanic
I body work for years
Try to make all that you shamed untrue
A lifetime of undoing
Feels like an always, forever
You preached that, in my hands,
they aren’t my tools
Questioning everything
Not believing that humans can actually
do this
But knowing
They’ve seen harassment so often it
becomes forgetful
But the fear, sheer terror, and the what ifs
They walk me home
The fear came from all the yous
Because women’s bodies can be owned
and lent
Lions dens in broad daylight
from the cats they make you feel you
know
We are not just somebody’s wife, sister or mother
Grooming is insidous
You stand complicit and claim there are no fangs
And we are power and real
and hope
Sickened to my stomach
I shake it off
and it won’t release
You claim as the prey went limp
That it wasn’t my nervous system
and a trauma response
It hurts all of my being, my psyche
So many lost life’s
Taken at the hands of control
A tried and tested system
That is needed because of all
those that do nothing
And are not guilty
Untangling what trauma responses were
As you live in a world that is gold
My universe is the reality of truth
We all wish it wasn’t so
