vanishing point

Kate Holly-Clark
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

This is not academic.

To me, to her, this is about having our asses grabbed by

a middle-aged white man and not being able to say no

because rent takes over half our salary and we

need the paycheck at the end of the week.

It was not academic when my friend called me

at 2am crying that he had been raped

they told him he should like it, he’s a fairy anyway

he was drunk because that was the only sensible thing

to do while you waited to find out

if you had AIDS or not

swooping in with your blackcrow academic robes

does not make that phone call

academic

or the 20 years it took to find out

if he made it or not

It is not academic that

mothers and wives stand

with empty arms,

able only to embrace

the shape of what was, trace the outlines

of faces on photographs

how dare you cover that with

a crow wing of sleeve and say

if they had only complied

with the police.

I was diagnosed ten years ago

and it is not a matter for hypotheticals

that I stay on my feet

propped by pill after pill

the measure of my illness

in black and white magnetic

imaging

if you tell me ten years is enough

I am now too expensive to live

wave your sleeve dismissively

at the days I crawl out of bed

and barely make it to the couch

I will not consider that a conjecture

but an attack on the life I have left

I know I am less
but I am not nothing

a vanishing point detectable only
by mathematics.

When you speculate on the shortness of her skirt

when you say that he should have complied

when you talk about his right as a CEO
to raise the price 700 times for folks who die without that pill

when you cut away those things

with your words

we do not see speculation
a discussion
we see the fire
smell the smoke

hear the crackling
and the bright heat across our faces we
are here
and are riding this bus
you steer by remote control
because you never were forced to book a seat
we know we are already burning
and you are standing half a mile away
waving your hands, discussing
our immolation
and measuring.

Resistance Poetry

Verse as Commentary

)

Kate Holly-Clark

Written by

Storyteller. Poet. Feminist.

Resistance Poetry

Verse as Commentary

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