INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE
MOLESTED
So many people
So many people
want complete freedom
from their horrid past.
from their horrid past.
They allow no room for that freedom.
Freedom is sitting alone,
drinking bourbon,
smoking cigarettes,
waiting for death.
Cry,
#metoo,
scream,
accuse,
point.
I am white
and male
and silent.
Privileged.
Age seven.
I was fucked in the ass.
Repeat lines five through nine.
Freedom
© M Durfee
11/17/17
Freedom is sitting alone,
drinking bourbon,
smoking cigarettes,
waiting for death.
Cry,
#metoo,
scream,
accuse,
point.
I am white
and male
and silent.
Privileged.
Age seven.
I was fucked in the ass.
Repeat lines five through nine.
Freedom
© M Durfee
11/17/17
First guess what it’s Friday again and that means it’s time for 55 words of poetry, prose or 49,945 words short of a completed NaNoWriMo. If you do decide that you want to complete an arc, beginning, middle, and end—join the movement so to speak, then feel free. When you do though link to Verse Escape so others can see your effort and wish you well in our own coded language.
Instead of reminding everyone of G-Man this week let me go into a bit of detail on this piece. I never talk about what happened to me 56 years ago, never was much point. I get that sexual abuse is a life altering event. It is the reason I have first been a very shy person and once I got over that have kept all of my relationships at arm’s length. What brings this up is all of the times in the past 6 months the White Male Privilege tag has been thrown at me; especially by people who know nothing about me, where I have been what I have done; the underlying thinking everything applies to all men, that I must have touched some women or girls inappropriately at some time because I am white and male. I have never. Bourbon was my bitch, now she is gone the wait is a bit lonelier.
I recognize that I tend to drive people away from me. Shit my siblings and my own kids and grand kid want nothing much to do with me, which is OK as well. I think I set the terms of the relationships without knowing it & now that they have been in place for so long—it is what it is. I am not all broken hearted about any of it, but I do recognize that one life altering, defining event is the one thing I have never been able to completely forget or forgive. So yes, I get it. I understand women now wanting to be heard about molestation and abuse no matter how long ago the events occurred.
Society must do a better job across the globe of properly instructing male children about the way females are too be treated; as equals, peers, wonderfully human creations, and worth every ounce of respect & fairness men give to men.
Be Well
mark
Yes, this is a difficult subject to read, but I have found it even more difficult to write about--people who have not experienced sexual encounters as a child make way too many assumptions about what it is and how it works. I myself was 8 years old, and I *know* my entire life has been spent alternatively chasing connection and severing it, and enshelling myself in the result. One comes to terms with it (lines 5-9,) as with any maiming or loss of the body or soul, but one can never be completely whole or unaltered. Well said,--especially the way one has to address the victim mentality and find a way to however rough to leave it behind(freedom)--and it needs to be said by more men, as this is FAR from a woman-only thing. Thanks for adding your 55 to the pile of words which we use to cope, Mark.
ReplyDeleteSo much pain in the world. And it only adds to it when people refuse to allow that someone else has felt it too.
ReplyDeleteIt is a difficult subject. One I have dealt with since I was five years old. I had lots of rough patches including attempted suicide. I am a survivor. I can write about it, speak about it, but I live beyond it. It seems like a damn has broken lately and the abused are speaking. It is certainly not just a female horror. Thank you for your words, your honesty.
ReplyDeleteI agree. On the need to teach young men & young women how to behave. I run a group at school that focuses on learning how to live in a world like this. We talk about a range of topics. How we treat each other ties into most of it. How we treat ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you have learned to live beyond it. I was never sexually abused, per se. But there were other things. It is a part of you, but if you let it define you - there is little freedom.
Excellent post Mark. I know the effect, not personally, but through a best friend who died a few years ago. Thanks for posting this. Here's the link to his: https://forums.politicalmachine.com/21980/Controls/
ReplyDeleteMost self-proclaimed intelligent and caring people know very little about what really goes through other poeple's hearts, about how to make them feel better. You'd think that they would ask, and then listen. But society has become so damn good at the art of grouping that too many forget that each person is an individual. Freedom is what we need to be free, not what others think it should be or it should look like.
ReplyDeleteEvery day I see women come forward and finally confess that they were sexually assaulted in the past ... I think it's much too late and they should just shut up about it ... just like my mother's mother and 2 aunts ... when they was raped and killed by the Russians in Jn 1945 ... Society will never change, meouwpoppa ... it's not good to look up history ... but it is good to deal with the present ... one day/ night at a time ... like go get to walking to work safely at 2240 hrs ... give a cigarette if asked by some creepy guy at 2430hrs ... I live an highly dangerous neighbourhood but have never been afraid to walk my 2 blocks to work at night ... even when hi on drugs they settle for a cigarette ... noticed a big difference in psych ... one third is genuinely mentally ill ( schizophrenia, Bi Polar, PD, FASD and PTSD and, two thirds is tripping on drug induced psychosis ... all of them end up on my acute unit with suicidal ideations ... Wishing you very acute meouw wishings, my friend Mark ... Love, always, cat.
ReplyDeleteYou might be white and male but you have never had that air of privileged arrogance.
ReplyDeleteKudos to you for telling you story