"Sex Traffic on Highway 85," "Instructions for Speaking to a Rape Victim," and "An Open Letter to the United Corporations"

Sex Traffic on Highway 85

Today, a teen girl testifies,
describes a sex-trafficking
route from Atlanta to Pensacola,
down to Orlando where other girls
are standing in line, waiting
to meet  Arial and Cinderella.

She maps the truck stops out by sensory detail,
the smell of gasoline, her John’s baby crying
in the back seat. She heard a lot lizard get sold
over the CB, slithered from one cab into the next.

This 14-year-old girl chokes on her friend’s name,
Remembers the sound of her screams, the threat
that they’d feed her to the gators too, if she couldn’t 
learn to say “yes “ with a smile
and bent knees.

She describes belt buckles, faces
that mothers can only dream of now,
pictures of wives and children
that watched from the dashboard
as she was plowed open and planted
with rotten seed. She
wonders if he rapes them too.

The child recites the cost of her skin, throat,
obedience. Currency never passed
her palms, but she vows to buy back
the pieces of her flesh
sold to the highest bidder,
shipped like freight
to an unknown
highway,
stopping
God knows where.

Instructions for Speaking to a Rape Victim

When she steps forward,
whether it’s while his semen
still seeps from forced entry points
or long after he left her carrying
the weight of his shame,
don’t ask her for details.

As she stands there summoning
just enough strength,
to steady her shaking knees
don’t measure her integrity
by the inches of her skirt.

Don’t ask what she was wearing
when she was attacked,
how many drinks she’d had,
how long she’d known him.
Don’t look for her faults,
fixate on her mistakes, mixed signals,
or missed opportunities to flee.
Don’t blame her for not saving herself.

Don’t defend the douche
that stole the apples from her cheeks
and replaced them with Xanax
and a Glock in her purse. Don’t ask why she’d
make such terrible allegations,
defending his honor while asking her
how she was so easily fooled.

Remember that anything you ask, she already
questions, every night tossing in self-doubt
and next-times. She wonders when
her husband’s touch will no longer
causes her to recoil, or when she can
accidently graze against her own skin,
without jerking in fear.

A Letter to the United Corporations

Hey, big government,
can you hear me?
I know you’re listening.
I’m just not sure if you can hear
my voice over the sound
of bombs blasting
or our currency collapsing.

I know you’re busy
paying off politicians
pocketing profits,
​dumbing down
future delinquents,
drone striking civilians,
silencing soldiers,
printing propaganda
portraying the deception
of a divide, delivering
discrimination and discouragement
mixed in with mindless bullshit
and bit after bit
of misleading lies
but I have a few things to say
before my rights get taken away

Listen closely.
Not just to the wire taps
and carefully crafted keystrokes.
Listen beyond the bomb
blasting buzz.
A revolution is rising.
Maybe you can hear us
with your genetically modified
ears of corn.

Which reminds me,
we’re gunna burn those fields
to the ground.
When you have nothing left
to shove down our throats
what will you poison us with?
When our bellies become bare
we will hunger for the truth
and read between your lies.
There will be nowhere for you to hide,
no disguise that will distinguish
you from Hitler’s henchmen.

Sure, you may have swapped
a swastika for a tracking device
and a religion for a race
but we are still divided.
You know what would happen
if we all came together, don’t you?
Surely a pack of piranhas
could rip apart a few sharks.

That’s why you’re quick
to lick away the blood on your finger tips
while feeding us bullshit
about trickle-down economics
you keep us tranquilized with
Ritalin and Morphine drips
while you play I spy
on our iPhones
monitoring every movement.
So, while you ransack and repeal
we will riot and revolt.
A revolution is rising.

Your only options are hear us
or fear us.