CONTENT WARNING:
The following poems concern themselves with themes and topics of sexual assault, sexual harassment, abuse, and sexism. Please continue reading with this in mind.
Editor’s Introduction:
For the past two weeks, survivors of sexual assault have been under siege by coverage and discussions surrounding the Supreme Court appointment hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. These events, broadcasted loudly and relentlessly across media outlets and social networks, act as a daily reminder of the violence that these survivors endured. Processing this trauma proves difficult even at the best of times and under the most helpful circumstances. In the face of the vitriolic, dehumanizing hate directed at survivors in the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh, the process becomes nearly impossible. This week, Ray Osborn asks us to consider the thoughts and practices that allow for this sort of abuse to exist. Although only one of the poems, “Nacreous Conclusions”, is about rape, the other three poems are about the kinds of attitudes that allow for the continued acceptance of sexual assault as an excusable norm by our government and society. These poems explore perspectives on being a survivor, the experience of objectification, and what it’s like to be thought of as “less than” or “not even” human. Osborn has written both a testimony and an indictment.
To survivors, from our October contributor, Ray Osborn, and the Broadly Textual Editing Staff, We Believe You!
St. Augustine’s Conclusions
This is the lie that he told:
the soul is the haven of
memory, home for thought.
In the beginning, she liked
to talk about world politics.
Now she will only speak
when her lover desires her
to speak. She once spoke
about the problems of racism,
environmentalism, fascism,
orientalism, religion, and
poverty. They were all the
result of human needs not
being met. The simplicity
of it made her forget about
her own situation, how
sexism takes the soul and
finds it a home, foster child.
He brought her opal and
pearl but she did not quickly
forget who she had been.
Her body foraged a land,
subterranean and hidden,
in the past anecdotes of
what she once was, lithe
building made from sand
where her soma waited
to run dry into the water
and disperse secretly
beyond where he was able
to touch her. He lied to her,
tells her he owns her body,
demands her making. He told
her she was like a fine system
made from gracious thought.
Uncertain Conclusions
The mysteries that hold
her are tacit, are bridal
exasperations. Any
conclusion made must
be an uncertain one.
It is eerie feminine
unfulfillment driven
by the light of this
thin, careful buzz. I am
uncertain. If you were
to hold me close so
that I forgot who you
are, she would whisper
frail warnings against
the noise that comes
from love. She might
be right to ignore you.
I cannot bear to leave
the tangent of your sighs.
Of her refusal to show
anything on a clear grid,
you are lit to wonder at her
certain mechanical ukase
to leave. It is how I could
be wrong about myself,
you say, as though my
inner disposition to make
truth regarding myself
is merely patination,
accumulation of particles
shed from mechanics of
my softer parts’ action.
These are reactions to
inner inconsistencies,
you say, as if with soul.
Nacreous Conclusions
You don’t cull your words
carefully, and touch my hip
with the ease of someone
unable to scrutinize space.
It would be permissible,
the way you touch me with
the impunity of your male
body, if I had time to think.
I am a shell, an oceanic rind,
examined and used by senses,
a hint to your animalian eyes.
This is a warning sign to your
handsy phallic knowledge,
careful certainty, thoughtful
considerations of the fact
of me. You lower yourself
into my orifices without
knowing that I refuse to let
you out, no exit for the gaze
that breaks under my words.
I explain myself to myself,
transpose woman through you.
It is my nacreous shell-shock
in the making of beauty which
you do not understand, try to
gather me. I slip from your
eyes in iridescence, deny you
entrance to my play in mirth.
I am pushing you away, you,
in midst of being found out.
Hope
When I fracture myself
into bits of wreckage
I call out the sun. I must
say to myself a thing
slung low and pious in
the sky. I must always
fight against tessellating it
with my bits as something
to behold. The sun is a
meagre lover and can’t
hold my body as I can.
Once I thought my body
was beautiful and could
jar the sun. Only now I
look and I see sunlight
collecting me, putting me
neatly away. I wonder
who I fractured myself
for. These glimmers, they
were me once. I call out
an aubade but there is
no arrival until the
plains latch dry with
self-doubt. Am I just a
system? Tell me I am alive.
Ray Osborn [a Creative Writing MFA at Syracuse University] is sick of writing these autobiographies of the soul stuck in hell, for lack of a better word. In general, Ray is interested in not talking about one’s self and, if you must know, Ray’s work focuses on ekphrasis, elegy, and visibility.