It's My Pleasure, After All
On shedding skin and saying it with your fucking chest
I wrote this poem in the heat of the lawsuit, when the doctor threatened to countersue me if I didn’t drop mine. He claimed I was slandering him online. After a brief Google search, I could see what he meant—the 1-star reviews were brutal, alleging sexual abuse.
The thing is, they weren’t written by me.
Yes, the language sounded familiar. Yes, it aligned with what I had experienced. But following my attorney’s advice, neither I nor my friends had said a single word online. We stayed silent. We stayed off the internet. So, who had written those reviews?
The accusations were damning for someone—but not me.
One might ask, how could there be multiple, similar accounts of abuse? Were these other survivors? Were they her friends? Were they the other Jane Does from the police report? A new victim? Or women I might one day meet?
I hope I get to meet them someday.
I can’t describe the gaslighting terror that followed; the way his threat twisted inside me, how the internalized violence screamed to keep me small. But I knew I had to keep going. Because this is what bullies do. They count on fear. They bank on silence.
And I’m fucking sick of it.
My forensic curiosity My contagious exhumation My shadow is a hunter Was it all really for nothing? Was it all really just something? Just a flash in the pan... My conscience A subtle ending My longing It’s just a penance I’m ruined by The Son of Sam The sand in all my edges As I’m bursting at the seams My skin is shedding And I’m falling, it would seem And I might be wrong but when I’m right— This light, the cracking of the shell— It’s double down The fucking meat grinder I’ll send us both to hell It’s Plutonian, this excavation Consultation with the 5th dimension Mention what a doll she was She slithers under doors, my love I love the braiding—it’s all nonsense It’s the art of metamorphosis The art of double dare Playing chicken On the stairs It’s my pleasure—No, it’s mine As two fine bitches fight for one glass of wine His stein is always full I dream about the moment We put murder on the menu She’s a hunter She’s a dandelion But lately she’s just a fucking lion Insatiable, a grunting bookie It’s time to pay, or get to cooking It’s looking good It’s feeling right Forensically, protected by gloves and tights Protected is a given nature Subtlety would be appreciated These feelings fawn and feel so dated Sated, she could never find it Bottomless, at brunch no less Say it with your fucking chest No notes— Depending on my mood Or monologues— I’ll show you rude I’ve had it at this thunderstruck Launching out of lapsing habits Rabbits for her body wash Awash in rage, she’s smoking, stationed Doing over 90 in this critical initiation What a silly thing to say The slaughter fits me after all It’s full circle on these motherfuckers It’s the art of dominoes as he stalls It’s the confrontation of omission The distortion of selective hearing What’s forgiveness? My cup is running over When I stop. I turn. I face. I lace these little stories With his projection and fantasies I’m pleased by all this hunting It’s my pleasure, after all I love a smoking gun I love the winter And the Fall
I wrote this to survive the unspeakable.
I published it because quiet is killing us.
Their secrets are sick, but we don’t have to keep them.