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December 6, 2019 Poetry

TRYING NOT TO BE RAPED, TRYING NOT TO LISTEN TO WHAT MEN TELL ME

Joanna C. Valente

TRYING NOT TO BE RAPED, TRYING NOT TO LISTEN TO WHAT MEN TELL ME photo


i don't know how to manage time
the same way i manage my 
body

away from men
and their hands and their will and their need

to take me when i'm choosing eggs, when i'm walking
to the bus, when i'm at the gynecologist, when i'm 
on my period, when i come out

when i am crying on the subway, when i am
a glass of wine too deep, when i am at work
and they come to me, into me

as if i was waiting for them all along 
and really, i've just been waiting

for myself. 

i don't want
to be yours. i don't want to go back
to the way i let myself
not be mine 

for most of my life. 
O stranger, my life is not 
yours. Is it even

mine?

 

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (Operating System, 2017), Sexting Ghosts (Unknown Press, 2018), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016), and is the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is the founder of Yes, Poetry and the managing editor for Civil Coping Mechanisms and Luna Luna Magazine. Some of their writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Brooklyn Magazine, Prelude, BUST, Spork Press, and elsewhere. Joanna also leads workshops at Brooklyn Poets. joannavalente.com / Twitter: @joannasaid / IG: joannacvalente

image: Dorothy Chan


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