Morning reflections on last night's results

By now so much has been said about the outcome of the election that my little voice is a whisper in the hurricane.  It’s drowned out by the tsunami wave of thoughts and opinions of the rest of the world.

But that doesn’t stop the voices in my head.  It didn’t stop me from rising early to check my phone, bleary-eyed, to check the outcome…hoping against hope that love would save us.  That there really was room for reason in the age of social media and somewhere educated people would be enough to calm all of this shit down. 

Nope.  That was way too much to ask for.

Then the memes and the tweets and the comments began to roll in and I was leaning over the precipice of despair and it all hit me at once…right about the time I read this facebook reposted tweet:  “What I learned on Election Night:  Being a racist, bigoted, prejudice, lying sexual predator is still more acceptable that being a woman.”…

Yep.  That one hurt.  A lot.

What hurt even more is that there are actually people that I thought I had a pretty solid friendship with, a solid respect for who over looked all of that savage behaviour and passed off the revelations of Trump’s sexually predatory nature as “sticks and stones.”

Two points, I feel need to be clarified:

1  1)      The fucking sisterhood is bullshit.  I knew that.  I’ve always known that.  From the time I was in Junior High and the girls wrote that I was a cock sucking slut on the bathroom walls (even though I didn't even know what all of that meant), I knew the sisterhood was bullshit.  HOWEVER, never, for one second did I think that the sisterhood would side with the rapist.  I guess Skinner was right – conditioning works wonders. 

The fucking sisterhood is bullshit because white women, in certain states,  voted for colour rather than making a statement about every person who violated us.  White women, in certain states,  voted for colour rather than for the LGBT, Non-binary people who stood with us for decades to help us out and we threw them under the bus like so many pairs of jizz-stained rape panties.  The connection:  Pence and Trump plan to repeal any forward steps for rights in the LGBT, non-binary communities.

Sorry, my dear LGBT, Non-binary friends of colour or otherwise, that would, certainly not have been me.

And maybe, as my husband suggested, it was about money and not colour - so the vote was for the guy with the bucks.  Oh, that's better.  :/

2  2)      It hit me this morning at my kitchen table, while I wrote my daily pages, that what this new President elect says to anyone who has lived through sexual violation – male or female – that our experiences were just normalised.  What happened to us was ok.  It says to us that there really is no justice for sexual molestations…none. 

I guess we can all be a little relieved that at least now it is out in the open and we can all stop pretending like we ever could get justice for what has happened to us.

It’s just a little difficult to face that, you know – to face the feelings that have been there all along:  the rape was ok because I had it coming somehow…the sexual abuse was acceptable because that’s just the way the world works…that anyone who wanted any part of me had unfettered access because there is no one to say otherwise…and now it really feels like that kind of behaviour has been ok’ed.

A little dramatic?  Maybe. 

So, I wrote this today, after sobbing at my kitchen table, this morning.  Gives you a glimpse into the soul of a shattered woman.  And I really do hope love will make us whole.  I really do.

the day after

Remember where you were at the end of the world?

Remember where you were when the ooze and filth rolled in

and covered the sky in screams and shrieks and moans of lamentation?

Remember the edge of the pit of despair where you hung your toes

just to see how far forward you could lean over them before your heavy heart pulled you in?

Remember the flash backs?

The fireworks of gut churning memories exploding behind your eyes,

surfacing into every muscle

and sliding across your skin until your knees buckled beneath you

and you wretched into your hands:

            those insidious touches

            and words

            those leers

            and cat calls

            those gropings

            and probings

            and pinning down

            and taking

            and taking

            and taking

            what was never theirs to have.

Remember where you were when it came to the surface –

the festering, foetid, flesh in the underbelly that now encased,

enrobed the world –

my world –

no less rotten and putrid

but now, somehow a fashion statement?

I remember.

I will always remember because I see all of the faces –

all of the faces of those who made my body dirtied with their finger prints

and DNA

and I wonder how I am going to face my work day with red, puffy eyes.

I will always remember because the reality slowly collapses around me –

in painful, beautiful waves –

that all of that uninvited invasion of my psyche,

and my body,

has just been made ok.

This morning,

and every morning,

my rapists

and predators

will wake up cleansed of their guilt.

Their violence has become ok

and

my violated body means nothing.

I remember the day I wept for freedom

and decency

and justice

at my candle-lit, early morning kitchen table,

praying that love would make us whole once more. 

R.L. Elke November 9/16