Tiger Beatdown

(with apologies to Lana Del Rey.  Trigger warning for misogynistic, transphobic violence)

when men open doors for me
yearning for my smile

and my lover cups my hips, pulling me to her
whispering “mine”

and

when my mother looked at my skirt and said “you’re not going out in that”
and my father said I was dead to him,
an embarrassment to the family

and  they gave him a job instead of me,
and again, and again,

and when they spoke over me, boys and beards alike,
wrote their words and theories on my skin
called me hysterical, unreliable, psychotic,

and

the psychologist asked me what underwear I was wearing,
and the doctor told me to get undressed
while another refused to treat my impure body at all

and strange men pulled at my crotch and my breasts, groping, reaching, tearing,
or the taxi driver said I could pay with sex
and I ran like hell
stumbling in the darkness
wishing I’d worn flats

and their fists hit my chest, and my body crumpled
they call me slut, whore, cunt
and everyone blamed me, anyway.

And you, my sisters, you closed the doors to shelters
and my bruises healed alone

organised conferences and
wrote books
while my words went unheard

and you told me die tranny bitch
called yourself radical

and never once realised how much

you are like the men

you hate.