The Body as Metaphor for War
another rape case echoes around your
news feed. you scroll through the story
& your fingers can almost touch blood.
how much rage can the body keep hostage
until it can no longer be a house to artillery,
until it fires itself into a bulletproof of glass?
rape, too, must be some kind of weaponry.
somewhere / a woman arms her two
daughters—pepper spray for breath /
little knives for fingers.
& again menfolk become synonymous
with chaos. a girl embraces her father
& smells a holocaust on his breath.
you begin
a not-all-men-are-the-same monologue /
you contemplate if the gravity of
dead girls outweighs generalisation /
you delete it mid-sentence
& choose to grieve instead.
you, instrument of trauma.
you, equivalent of ruin.
