Rage 1
Rage becomes me because rage made me.
Rage 2.
These are not lacerations. | |
They are the cuts I sustained on my hands and arms from fending off his knife. | |
These are not contusions. | |
They are the injuries to my head when he sat on me, grabbed me by the ears and bashed my head onto our tiled floor. | |
These are not fractures. | |
They are my shattered ribs from the steel-toe boots he wore to kick me. | |
These are not punctures. | |
They are my fragmented ribs stabbing and ripping my lungs. | |
This is not domestic violence | |
This is him killing me. | |
When will you stop undermining our survival with your sanitized language of a doctor’s office? | |
Rage 3.
There’s a war going on.
Against our bodies, lives and rights.
I won’t use words that enable your somnabulence, indifference and insouciance.
I will use words that infuriate and enrage you because I want you
To wake the fuck up.
# # #
C. Christine Fair is a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor within the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She studies the political and military events of South Asia and travels extensively throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka as well as other locales as demanded by her research questions. Perhaps most importantly, she’s a parentless-child a long way from home with serious justice fetish. She tweets at @cchristinefair. Her website is christinefair.net.
Photo: Heather M. Edwards
