Rapists in the Lecture Halls

Content warning: rape (no graphic depiction)

​

There are rapists in the lecture halls.

It’s just, like, a fact.

Boys, little wormy, disgusting boys

Rape people all the time,

And nothing happens to them.

There are all these programs that pinky promise

Monsters are managed.

It’s such a mirage,

Such a lie.

Title IX is a joke.

The “justice” system is a ruse.

Boys rape people,

And they go to class with their victims,

But they go to class with everyone else too,

And these innocent people will never know who they sit by.

These rapists make friends

And have girlfriends

And eat crappy burgers in the cafeteria

And it feels like there is not even a single afterimage of order

That a sexual predator should be able to complain

That his ground beef is overcooked.

There are scrawny rapists,

Terribly unassuming rapists

Who are into Super Mario Brothers

And wear glasses

And look like they never really embraced puberty.

There are rapists who don’t know they are rapists.

They rape people because they believe so deeply

What they do is okay.

Lots of rapists rape because

They can’t see anything wrong

Within their pathetic self.

Their survivors will never have the paltry justice of knowing

They are aware of what they have done

And they have to live with it

And they remember it from time to time

And they feel the weight of their profound violation

Because they don’t.

You’ll never have closure.

You'll never get to tell them off.

So play along.

Play pretend

Like you did in preschool,

But this time you are older,

And your whole future rides on this collegiate stage.

Pretend we can see monsters.

But know secretly and deeply

That all monsters are imperceptible ghosts.

And I am a wraith

Because my soul is passing

Through these halls

Disgusted and angry.

You’ve probably sat next to a rapist,

But don't think about it.

Just join the production.

You are on the cast list.

We live a fiction.

It has to be this way

Or else I would fade into the wall.

A nuclear shadow

Amidst the terrors so prevalent.