When a surge of anxiety rushes through your body like a football player towards the N-zone because you’re forced to walk the city unarmed
Don’t come crying to me
You chose this city with its big lights and great temptations
That man lurking his way towards you sees those shorts groping your upper thigh like he wants to
And why deny him his rite of passage
You slept with a few guys, so you must want to sleep with them all
Come on suck it up: it’s not like you’re a virgin
You said yes to a drink, that should be the signature on a nonexistent consent form
You thought that tonight you’d get over a heartbreak by finding a guy at the bar
But suddenly your legs wobble like they used to when you were a toddler learning to walk
And after all this place is new to you, or might as well be
As posters on the wall become blurry
Faces of this tavern mesh and you stumble your way out of this pub
The man who crept around the entire night like a cheetah awaiting a gazelle because he cannot speak easy
You are the steriod he’s been searching for, the chemical that’ll make him feel like a man as he dynamites his way past the your fort of legs
You limbo in and out of consciousness
The alcohol taints the image of what he looks like beneath the mask he hid behind as you passed him on your way the bathroom
Maybe that’s when he sunk his venom into your drink
He likes that thigh gap you worked all summer for because that leaves space for him and his tainted fantasies to do whatever the hell they want
Do not take it personally: you are just a puppet to him
Something to control
It’s finally over and your clothes have been torn
You do a walk of shame on these streets that you did not ask for
But they’ll assume you did anyways
You could not defend yourself last night because the pocketknife, the mace, the unconventional armor you longed to carry is not legal in New York State
And once again you cannot defend yourself
As fellow women, who this could’ve been who this will be or was at some point
She’ll slut-shame you, and look at you with bare disgust
Men will look at you like crumbs of a birthday cake
Your stomach is a campground rope
Running up to your neck: a noose that ties you into just another statistic
This city has chewed you up and spat you out like a bathroom swirly
You will spin around in toilet bowl circles until it’s time to flush you down the drain
Because you’ll go to trial if you can make it that far
And they ask what you were wearing
He’ll say you asked for it if you can even pick him out of a lineup
And the system will fail you
Because it was set up to protect and perpetuate the perpetrators