To be raped: To lose all control and have part of another person’s body thrust violently against your will, several times, into you, for a seemingly indefinite period of time, under circumstances where crying for help is either futile or brings even more damaging and painful consequences than what is already inhuman.
To be a survivor of rape: To live with this.
Your exam did not rape you.
—
That’s so gay, gay, gay.
You’re so gay, gay, gay.
And what if I am?
It doesn’t stop me laughing with you
if we don’t look and walk into a wall,
or pulling you back up when you fall
skating too soon on an ice-smooth rink.
I still listen through the latest hours of the night
when you call with tears falling through the phone;
I’ll paint and sing and write and make
with all the passion my heart can give;
I weep when I let go of one I still want to hold.
I’m sorry you didn’t realize how much it hurt.
Nor did I.
I know what you meant: it’s so stupid, not
I’m so happy—the last time someone used that was 1962.
What Who do you mock in denying?
Being gay doesn’t mean I’m in love with you. Thank god.
Nor does saying all this mean I am, you know.
