A poem based on the recent rape case in Steubenville, Ohio.
Rape Culture lives in Ohio.
He is a 17-year old male.
He is Caucasian.
He is African American.
He wears his jersey
Like Francis wears his new papal crown,
Because football is his religion,
And being a man means
Going to parties to drink
And to once in a while
Rape a 16-year old girl (or two),
Depending on how intoxicated she is,
And take a picture of her naked,
And post it on Twitter,
And pick her up from the floor,
And carry her to another party,
Watch as a peer urinates on her unconscious body,
Watch as another one retweets his tweet.
Rape Culture slowly puts his fingers on the girl’s body
Watch how she doesn’t move, or scream, or show pain, or fight back
Watch how unconscious she is
Rape Culture is lucky Steubenville plays blind and deaf.
(Steubenville plays stupidville)
Rape Culture “had such promising futures”, CNN reported.
CNN reported they are registered sex offenders
But CNN did not report they chose to be.
CNN did not report what the victim will go through
CNN did not report the weight of the victim’s tears
Or her mother’s silent crying every night afterwards,
Or her father’s sense of shame just walking down the street
CNN simply did not
Report
Because it wasn’t the SuperBowl,
And unless he is making a touchdown before a crowd of millions,
America sits Rape Culture on the bench of
O b l I v I o n
Angelika Romero is a Journalism major/ Publishing minor at Emerson College. She was born in 1992 and is from Nicaragua. Her poetry has been published in several publications such as Black Swan and Writer's Block Anthology. She is fluent in Spanish and Sarcasm.
By Zoe Kleinfeld, Contributor, La Jolla High School
It’s sometime after the Age of Aquarius, and we’re all our father’s daughters, seventeen, Actaeon. The breath sticks heavy against my throat as her voice whips white against the world: all psychedelic in heroin, red metal chain link strands, 27.
Another time, the moon was rising on the subway and she was yolky sun: setting fire to ants in the bald patches of the grass- turning my own back flaming red.
Yeah baby, yeah: her words swish fabric, lick around my tongue, slip from my lips like a tinged cigarette as I roll to her strums. Leaves me dizzy in copacetic blues.
This is an anthem against teen angst: miles and miles of everything.
Somewhere between muddy diner coffee and Jesus when I pray my head down to let her words melt against my inner ear and drawl the drum of a bebop: the sounds that make the people believe.
Unlike the last two times, I know where I am instantly. A nurse stands over me, saying something about how I need a smaller blood pressure cuff because I’m a tiny thing.
I’m not tiny, I think. If anything, there’s too much of me, I don’t know what to do with it all. I have no self-control, no limits, hedonistic to a fault. Always searching for pleasure. Isn’t that my problem? Hasn’t it always been? Sleeping in too late, eating terribly, always in love, always in danger. Addictive, obsessive, high on life and whatever else I’m offered.
My rumpled party clothes look garish in this light and I know I have black eyeliner streaked under my eyes. My hair is spread out behind me, dark and tangled on the pillow. Dried blood on my hand where the nurse missed with the IV. I’ve been told I have shitty veins.
A male nurse comes in. Young, looks too alert. He notices I’m awake, wishes me a good morning.
Fuck, it’s morning.
The machine next to me says 6:42 AM. Real morning. I can tell I’m still tipsy because I flirt with him like an idiot.
“Steve,” I whisper, looking up at him with stupid bedroom eyes that probably just make me look drunker. “Could I maybe have some water?” My lips are cracked and cottony. “My name is Michael,” he laughs, “ice or no ice?” “Ice, please.” He’s gone.
The only other people here are belligerently drunk homeless men. One of them slurs something rude at Michael the nurse as he brings me my cup.
I don’t belong here.
I’m still pleasantly buzzed, my head is full of static, and the florescence of the hallway makes me feel like this doesn’t have to be real life. The female nurse returns.
“Oh honey,” such a nurse cliche, I think. “Look at you, you must give your poor dad a heart attack.” Cliche and irritating. I make my lips turn up at the corners. It becomes more of a grimace than a smile. I close my eyes, she flits around the room, magically procures my shoes, takes the IV out and bandages my hand in a few practiced motions. She turns back, looking at me.
“I bet you’re a heartbreaker.”
I’m instructed to go to the bathroom down the hall. I don’t need to but I want to feel in control of myself so I walk the hundred feet, barefoot and a little unsteady. I fix my eyes on a point on the opposite wall, and bits and pieces begin to come back: girls giggling in the back of a cab, rain-soaked hair turned jet-black and plastered to my skin, a claustrophobic party spilling onto the sidewalk. Another cab ride, another apartment. I walk in and immediately break a shot glass. A large bro-y guy laughs like it’s cute. It wasn’t cute. I just wanted to break something. A boy locks the bathroom door behind us and leans against the sink, eyebrows raised. I can’t catch my breath. His fingers trace my cheekbone, my jawline. He tilts my chin up with dirty fingers but my eyes feel too heavy and I can’t look at him. I want out.
I hope I got out.
I reach the hospital bathroom, lean on the sink and force myself to look in the mirror. I'm paler than usual, with circles under my eyes and purple bruises on my collarbone. Dark tendrils of hair hang in my face and I feel outside of myself, outside of my body. The girl in the mirror smirks.