My Body, My Temple

I see men, sitting at a round table,
Deciding if i should keep it,
Last time i checked, this vessel was my body,
To carry however i wanted,
To carry whomever and go wherever i wanted it to go,
My body is my vessel,
My temple,
To treat however i see fit.

When i walked into the station,
I heard them whispering to each other,
Like little crickets,
Loud enough for me to hear,
Low enough for them to pretend like i didn't,
"She asked for it",
The simple phrase repeating in my head,
Hours after i had left the station.
How did i ask for it?
It is now a crime? To wear my skirt and shirt?
To carry my books and walk my street?
Once upon a time,
They thought us freedom and civil rights.

You know what he told me, while hitting my face repeatedly,
Pinning me me to the ground,
And crushing my pelvis on the cold stone beneath my back?
He whispered soothingly "Stop pretending you don't like it".
The men in tailored suits,
At the round table are clueless,
They did not feel my fear, neither my pain,
It wasn't their daughters, lying in the dark alley,
Warm blood streaming down her lips and nose,
Feeling like her genital was on fire,

Yet they get to decide if i should keep it or not,
They say abortion is murder but what of rape?
Have they defined it?
I died several time in that cold alley,
And i died a thousand times more days after,
I still die every single time i got to sleep
And find myself in that same alley,

I'm here wondering,
Who decides what's worthy,
And what's not,
To sit high and mighty on the round table.
Unless you have being raped,
Do not tell me to keep quiet about it,
Unless your daughter has being raped,
Do not tell i asked for it,
And unless you have a uterus, carrying a child,
Whom you conceived during an attack in an alley,
Do not tell me abortion is murder.