i run into the foyer of the rape crisis
centre/ crying out to my counsellor:
counsellor help me/ i am turned on by
pornography/
i am physically attuned to
violence/ the script comes easily from my
lips/
my body is cast for the leading
role/ i am ready to be fucked/
by the
dirty hateful words/ by the knife & gun
episodes/
& counsellor said that children
exposed to pornography/ equate violence
& death with sexual intimacy/
my body
oh body/ sex is not mutilation/ sex is
not hatred/ sex is not rape/
sex is not
pain/ is not bad/ is not torture/ is
not snuff & murder/
oh body my body/
get tuned in/ get turned on/ by the
lover/ not the killer/ be the woman/
not the whore/
& know the difference/
poor body of mine/ between the two/
i want to clear my name as actress/ &
announce myself as real/
but my head
rests like a canonball of corruption
on my shoulders/
i want to pull a piece
of string/ to set the blackness flying/
i want the record to turn over/ i want
to flip sides/ i need a love song/ i
want a shot gun/
the one with the loudest
bang/ to blow the filth/ in one ear &
out the other/ i want to start from
scratch/
you ask: what have i got against
life?/ i have a problem with existence/
i confess to working undercover/ as an
agent of the emotional police/ you ask:
have i found the evidence?/
i have in my
possession/ the exhibits of violent acts/
i am the offender, the victim/ the judge
& the witness/
you will not love me for
long/ i have done my share of time
inside a pornographic prison/
i have
prayed in a church of distortion/ with
the hymn of violence on my lips/ &
false eros on the pulpit/
i have
renounced my body as trash/ my lover's
body as trash/ & the sexual act as
criminal/
i became objectified in the
dark/ & was lost forever from contact/
but i hung onto your ankles/ & your ribs
became a birdcage/ filling slowly with
clean air/ which i so longed for/
my
tired head at rest on your blue trouser
legs/ in my own dark clouds of knowing/
let me be intimate for tonight/
& let
pornography flee at midnight/ down its
own dark steps of shadows/ & let my
burnt heart glow in its embers/
& so i
wept in your presence/ afraid of my
trembling sexuality/ & of your fresh
blue body on my bed/
& of the blackness
of the bullet wound/ & of the empty
spaces it left behind
