Thursday, April 25, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and TWENTY SIX

What Is the Number?

Is it 60?
Is it 7?
How many does it take
to make you

believe women?

How many stories must we tell
about how we couldn’t get away
about how we were drugged
about how he said he would kill himself
if we didn’t text back?

How many?

Is it five?
Is it five hundred?

Could it ever possibly be just

one?

Just one without you asking
if it was so bad why didn’t you get away?
Why didn’t you leave?
Just one
and you’ll stop saying
she’s lying,
she wants attention

as if risking the embarrassment
the pain of reliving
what was done to her
is not horrifying enough?

Just one
and you’ll stop defending him?
Stop saying he’s misunderstood?
Stop calling it a witch hunt?
Stop making excuses for
his behavior?
Just one?

Just one more?

You tell me.
How many?

--Ally Malinenko

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