You disabled cunt, you’re thick as shit / He boasts with teeth and roasts me down / Flaky burned, trashed worm, / Greased from sweat, he’s big in debt / This slipping presence amputates my malleable posture with no shape. //

                                      I’m 8 years old, or so I’ve been told / I have no name but am used for games / Because guys love to play Exaggerate / I’m a hyperbole they get to throw / Whilst pushing my self-esteem way down low / My pulse wants to keep up but it can’t catch the ball / What an honour it is not to be excluded from a man’s world!!! //

                                                               He is the one who dares to curse the worst, to spit the harshest words forwards / He has the audacity of a tragic comedy, awkward thus humorous / It aches but everything is meaningless / Or irony is used as an excuse to abuse / To condition the way I self-efface / They know I’ll comply to serve their precious race / To condescend my occupation of both time and space. //                                               

       Yet knowledge of him means immunity: that’s just the way he is, don’t let those words get to you / As if language is powerless when it’s not truth-apt / For me it’s basically a result of everything I lack / As if his phrasing’s my fault cos I ask for it / I know I’m too slow and always out of it / As if my being requires patience I don’t deserve / I need to practise being on their level first  / Or maybe I just take it all far too seriously / Should I calm the fuck down because it’s only a joke? / But if it’s only a joke then the problem is that: I. Am. The. Joke. / How can you see it’s not true when you separate the two / When he steals a part of me and shreds it to bits / You are on his side when you tell me to stop fretting / And attempt to parent me into not causing a scene / Simplifying me for the sake of your comfort / Pinning me down for his so-called experiment / How big of a bite from my ego can he take / I’d rather be nothing than be threatened by him / Set the timer on go and turn me invisible / Since I’m clearly too much when I make myself accessible / In silence I’m begging, please and honestly, / I think I’m growing loyal to my incapability / Of doing anything right / I half-believe him. //                 

                                          R u fuckin insane, ‘cos no normal person could be THAT stupid, / I swear, you have mental problems / He denounces me whilst crowning himself the anti hero / Reckless enough to be so crude, brave enough to cause discomfort / Since politeness is a social barrier I think he’d like to break, / At least from himself, he’s exceptional, smarter than the rest / Superiority complex, he’s totally wrecked / Don’t know the details of his context / To protect, he absorbs me in only myself / No need to scream for any kind of help / My intimidated heart expends shame to its delicate frame / I’m an object of his sadistic pleasures / It’s disturbing my nerves but I must stay alert / Act indifferent or laugh along, let him casually rip into my dignity, / Which could break if I tell him to fuck off / Whilst I trip over my words and burst into tears / So shut up, a change of subject is near / This assumed lack of severity twists my gut so heavily, / A giant knot of their mind control perverting my chest / I want to breathe steady but my body won’t rest.

Words and illustration by Alice Hsu.