you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your father could do this to your mother.
you don’t believe your mother could do this to your sibling.
you don’t believe your teacher could
you don’t believe your best friend could
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your father could do this to your mother.
you don’t believe your mother could do this to your sibling.
you don’t believe your teacher could
you don’t believe your best friend could you couldn’t believe
you don’t believe your police officer could you could do this
you don’t believe your social worker could to the ones you love
you don’t believe your favourite writer could (and don’t)
you don’t believe your therapist could but you did.
you don’t believe your religious leader could you did.
you don’t believe your activist family could
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
you don’t believe your queer friend could do this to your other queer friend.
but they did. they did.
Author statement:
“I can’t believe it.” “They’re a good person.” “They could never…” These words are so familiar they’re almost tattooed on my skin. But sometimes I also wonder if I am somebody else’s “couldn’t have possibly done it.” With the cruel and unrelenting attention in the media on famous and powerful men in #CanLit, academia, the theatre world, the music industry, the comedy world, and the U.S. government, to name a few, it’s easy to forget how ordinary sexual violence and abuse are.
I wrote this poem because I can no longer put any more of this news in my body. I wrote it to puncture the inflated hot air balloon that is the mainstream media, constantly edging out queer and trans stories of violence that happen in my communities every day. To grieve the messiness, repressed so deep within us that we become experts at pretending. Which survivors get believed? If we so easily learn to protect the most violent instincts within us, can we also learn to trust what our bodies remember?
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