"Fuck This Shit" An Autobiography For Riot Grrls #8
copyright (c) 1996 by Annalee Newitz
I could've been
born a boy
and then perhaps his anger would have spilled over me
in torrents rather than showers
for after all in a house with a man like that
how could anyone's dick ever measure up
(at least a girl I was immune
to that particular contest)
could've gone insane and burned everything I loved in the street
when my professors told me I was stupid
and would never make a good academic
because I giggled,
unapologetically talked with my SoCal accent (saying "like" instead of
"uh"),
and still had the nerve to look wildly around me for truth
as if I were some sort of maniacal, spinning cartoon character
zipping up and down your TV screen
fuzzy and fanged, grinning and growling
I almost was, I almost did
just one chromosome of difference
or perhaps just one switch thrown in my socialization
and that would've been me crying, naked
under hot shower water, his rape fully consummated, my secret changed
forever
and that would've been me walking for days without sleep
slowly lighting on fire
as I tried to decode messages in license plates and coffee shop
windows
until somebody put me in the psych ward
twice in one month
there's a thin line
they say frantically to each other
on TV's "movie of the week"
(where some woman is always crazy, some boy is always destroyed for
being raped by his
father)
but now I know that line is actually not so very thin at all
a whole unfolded narrative separates me
from the failed, fucked up bastard I could've been
if they'd made me
and I'd believed that they were right to do it
7-16-96
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