It's That Time Again

It's that time again. Time for another improvised poem-thing. The following poem-thing is written on a subject I feel extremely passionate about, and I am not, in any way, 'asking for attention', as I have never personally experienced anything that I'm about to talk about. My wish is to simply raise awareness for the people for whom this subject matter effects or is relevant to. And to ask anybody who knows somebody like this to simply tell them that you're there to listen. And to anybody who is going through something like this to, please, tell someone. (I will leave numbers and links for hotlines etc. below) I am also not insinuating that women are the only ones who suffer from rape/sexual assault, but this poem is written in light of some recent news in the UK about a young girl living very close to home. (I will also leave a link to the news article below)

Attract

If you believe in this stuff,
We're all God's creations
But we even brush past someone,
Without a written invitation?

You know, I'm all for women's rights
I'm a feminist, right here
And I'll stand up for anyone,
Gay, bi or queer.

But people who say the don't like history,
Because it means 'his story'
Need to get over themselves,
Because you're so fucking boring.

I'd be lying if I said,
We haven't moved forward
If we said we could be gay,
Without a fucking chorus.

But when people say 'feminist',
It attracts 'bad attention'
But it still fill up our archives,
Our statuses and mentions.

Because, online, we're different people
It's not hard to realise
But you've never seen something twist,
Behind your parents' eyes-

When you tell them that you're gay,
You were attacked or assaulted
When they don't know how to take it
When it turns into your fault and-

They ask you what you were wearing
'How short was your skirt?'
'Didn't you scream at all?'
And when you show them the dirt

You're the little whore girl,
Who craved bad attention
Just to fill up her archive,
Her statuses and mentions.

We live in a society,
That teaches girls not to get raped
Instead of waking men up,
With the smell of their mistakes.

Samaritans website (UK): http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you?gclid=CjwKEAjw2ImsBRCnjq70n_amv14SJAChXijNuXUGa24lx-KMGEC2CaTq6Lj3pnbcHIZf9gjjiojnaBoChifw_wcB

NHS Live Well website and helpline (UK + IRL): http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Sexualhealth/Pages/Sexualassault.aspx

RAINN (US): https://www.rainn.org/get-help/national-sexual-assault-hotline

Daily Mail article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3052548/Teenager-dragged-bus-stop-brutally-raped-breaks-silence-tell-t-sleep-trauma-assault-police-release-new-efit-try-catch-attacker.html


R.

Why Caitlyn is Important

My Links:
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I apologise for being a bit late to the party on this, but it's taken me a while to actually transfer what I think into coherent text.

'Call me Caitlyn'. That's what she said. Not, 'Oh, you can call me Caitlyn if you want'. No, she told you exactly how to address her. So all those people telling the world that they're, in fact, going to take it upon themselves to call her Bruce *cough, Drake Bell*, are just malevolent pricks who need to get an ironically placed stick out of their arses.

All those people criticising the news for focussing on this 'worthless' story instead of, for example, the Nepal earthquake, need to understand that news broadcasters are not favouring Caitlyn's life over the thousands that have been affected by the disaster. I'm sure Caitlyn herself would agree that her story, though extremely important to the LGBT+ community, to which I am a part of, is not on the scale of such an epidemic, and nobody's arguing that! But the fact is, it's not just Caitlyn's life that we're talking about here, it's the lives of thousands of other people, young and old, struggling to come to terms with their sexuality and gender image. 

This one woman, in the space of a couple of hours, broke the record for gaining the most Twitter followers in that amount of time. Now, I know some of you are thinking, 'Twitter followers don't mean anything', but you couldn't be more wrong. Social media is power. It connects people globally to one-another. Because of this, Caitlyn is power. She is spreading her message of confidence and acceptance across the globe, which will, in turn, inspire people to accept themselves. Without people like Caitlyn standing up for minority groups, the world would be a different place. A place where I wouldn't want to live.

The fact is, it's not just about Caitlyn anymore, it's about everyone. When people criticised her for introducing herself in such a grand way on the cover of Vanity Fair, they're right, it was an attention-seeking act. But she wasn't seeking attention for herself, but for her situation. By shining a light, and a big one at that, on her life, her body and her situation, it shone a light on other people. It opened up the doors to anyone who thought they were alone. Because, if it's one thing Caitlyn fought anyone, it's that the phrase 'I'm alone', doesn't have a place anymore in modern society.

So this is for Caitlyn. I hope you're happy. That's all there is to say, really.

R.