You
someone else’s rapist
lean back in client chair
shadows of survivors indented behind
it is difficult
not to want to hurl you from that sacred place
screaming; You do not have the right! Haven’t you possessed enough flesh and soul?
I place one hand over the other, as if I am
wearing plastic gloves and submerging them in
hot dish-water, doing some kind of
domestic yoga move
instead of drinking or cursing or rising up with sword.
You are physically attractive, it might make people ask
why do you need to rape? Just like they ask; Why would he rape her?
Why did she wear that short skirt? All sorts of wrong-headed pronouncements
cluttering our throats with ire.
I have seen how women write, to prisoners like you
fascinated by the ‘bad boy,’ even marrying you
you, who would chop them into little red
pieces and eat them, if they only
could find a decent frying pan.
Maybe it is like having a tiger behind a cage
his heaving, ancient, lustrous fur, intoxicating sanity.
I do not pretend to understand
although I know we are strange, muddled creatures
the mechanisms of desire, who is to judge?
The one who wishes to be urinated on, beaten
savagely, tied up and left for dead, or
marry Ted Bundy on a Tuesday?
There are surely, limits, I think, as you
boldly express your hyperbole repentance
and I silently disbelieve your every word.
I am thinking; It’s therapy like this rotten apple, looking shiny on the outside,
that is dismal and false, chewing out the center of our profession
where sociopaths play with
good intentioned rules like
greedy children with plastic building blocks.
I have no doubt, if you were truly
alone with me and not
an emergency button away
hanging loosely from my slender neck
you’d bite me until my skin became
a map of welts and hurt, leaving a necklace of rose blooms, then
drive yourself through me like an
arrow, I will never forget the piercing of
and whilst you feel your pleasure in lies
I am disgusted that I have to bear witness
to your play acting, as surely no woman living
should have to hear anything you have to say
ever again.
There are times, being who I am
isn’t what I want and
I’d rather peal off this weary ‘caring’ suit
wear red tights with a monacle and no bra
drink peach schnapes at mid-day with one olive
my legs flung over afghan sofa
fingers pushing lovers between my legs.
But we become who we are, and I am
the psychotherapist who must at ten am see
rapists
as they abuse the system the way they
butchered women’s bodies
tasting the scars like livid memories
on their ugly thin lips of denial and delight.
I don’t ask you why you did it
I know as well as you, and do not want
to hear your false apologies, you are no more
repentant than the lion, who having eaten his
fill, will sit in the sun sated, licking his thick fur
clean.
I want to apologize to the women
I shall see later on
who inherit this contaminated ghost-world chair
though I clean it after you have left
your stink remains in my mind
as your poisonous choices infiltrate this supposed sanctuary
and I feel your hands on me like glue, as if you were not
slouching in front of me, but pealing
your clothes off and rushing your terror
in my face.
We are after all, only
a thin surface of respectability in a
hidden gleaming jungle of pretense,
if the lights were to dim
if the others forgot I was working late
one day, you’d quietly like a lynx, lock my door
and cut me to pieces with the
hatred in your emptied eyes.
I know, you see, what it feels like to have
a dagger thrust through your body, filled with damage
a mind of repulsion, set on repeat
the disgust creatures like you, leave women like me
to deal with, deep in our Kintsugi psyches.
This is why I sit here, knowing if I
turn you down, I lose my job , yet aware you will not
from me, receive favor or even, compassion
I do not have any.
I would, if I could
turn violence against you
damn you to torment yourself
but, I suspect that will happen one day
when you drop your soap, in the cinder-block showers.
if that makes me Old Testament
I’m okay with that
you see, I never signed up for victimhood
I carry a knife in my loose sleeve
longer than your worst horrors
you are deficient in your belief
you are still a menace, we have
already begun the war, you have already fallen
to our rebuke
if I’m judged for this, I will remind people
choices leave scars, as hunters do
and we who survive
will turn our scars outward
never again
let ourselves be lost
to the predator who thinks
he can outwit the deer
Gandhi said; An eye for an eye leaves
the whole world blind,
I have learned, I can see
in the dark.
I have seen clients in a jail, but I am glad none were for that reason. No, I was there to sort the truly ill in need of another sort of confinement from the McMurphies thinking the Cuckoo’s Nest a better perch. Still, through the layers of locked doors I went to sit in a very small room with the inmate. My mind paints a vivid picture of this encounter.
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
TheFeatheredSleep – Encounter in a small room
Truth. I know you can relate to this one totally
I thought of you as I wrote it. I wondered if you had. We had a grant where we had to see rapists as well as survivors which I personally thought was f**ked but that’s how it was so you could not really turn them down. I know someone has to though … I get that I really do. I just don’t want to be that person. I don’t possess that type of compassion or belief in redemption. I guess I really am Old Testament but after seeing clients at the rape crisis that long it was hard not to be biased.
I think there are some men who can come to understand that they have been operating in a dangerous understanding of the sexual relationship, and learn a new one. Others cannot. They are sociopaths and narcissists who truly believe they can take what they want and use the bodies and minds of others as they please. That sort will not change. They don’t see the point of it and don’t care, but they will lie about it. Or, they have been taught that men are supposed to, divinely mandated, to dominate and control women. They are unlikely to change short of a full blown religious conversion.
I find myself wishing in recent years that Trauma Informed Therapy had been more of a thing when I was working with the severely mentally ill population.
Indeed. Thanks for writing it.
We are after all, only
a thin surface of respectability in a
hidden gleaming jungle of pretense
Sadly this is true and yet it shouldn’t be. At some point I dream that humanity will reach the heights it is capable of reaching. Until then there is no place in our world for abusers (of any ilk).
Such an accurate, heartfelt, description of the therapist’s conflict.
There is much to absorb and process in this that I literally could not respond when I read it for the first time yesterday. You probably don’t need me to say this, but it should be posted on Blood Into Ink and Whisper and the Roar. And hanging on walls and etched in glass for anyone of us who have sat in your chair.
You are so brilliant, Love ❤
I would be honored for you to publish it there. And more honored that you read this and appreciated it. thank you so much. It means everything and I do need you to say it.
Thank you my brother
Could not agree more my friend Chris could not agree more. Of course there are predators of both genders and I did not reflect that in my poem which I ought to have done, as I am by no means a man-hater just a hater of people who do harm. I appreciate you
I do too. to be fair. I should have said that. Because I do believe that. ULtimately. I just get tired of how many times we give chances to those who do not. And how few are prosecuted and brought to ‘justice’ etc. I also agree a religious conversion is not always sufficient reason in my book – I agree with you about TIT very much so (just realized what TIT looks like and giggled)
I had not converted it to the initials – yes, a definite giggle.
Oh yes, that made my flesh crawl and bile rise in my throat. You’re amazingly talented, and brave: I could not sit in that chair (& I did study social work at uni years ago). I’m grateful you could transform that experience with your creativity, and share it with humble fans such as I ❤ G
I agree – it is the crime and not the gender. Take care.
Reblogged this on Brave & Reckless and commented:
I was literally speechless the first time I read this.
A re-blog from you is EVERYTHING
You also my friend
Thank you sweetheart – thank you. I hope you will one day submit to one of my anthologies I so do! You need to believe in YOUR work more! I believe in it for you
You are so awesomely kind- I’d love to- that would be a dream coming true- I am visiting a couple of short stories now actually, so am feeling reinspired- that old relationship drained my muse a bit (should have taken that as a sign! 🙄😖) ❤️
I hope you know you can count on me to help you in any way I can. We are more than WP friends you must keep in touch and LMK how you really are. I wish you were on FB even as I loathe FB.