Plesiosaur & Let me walk you through this painfully by Georgia Kartas
Content Warning: sexual assault and harassment
Plesiosaur
you keep trying
to pour yourself into me
thinking that
I am a looking glass
upon whose surface
you can admire your reflection
but Narcissus
you are taken aback
when you look into the water
and see not yourself
but a dark, inky body
it upsets you
that my tongue
is sharper than my teeth
that my swim stroke
strokes not your ego
nor your desire
you brush the shadow away
with disinterested fingers
the ripples make you
caress my scalp
I try to tell you that
95% of the ocean
is still unexplored
I’m ignored, and
fishing in the wrong pond
and you won’t listen to anything
unless it sounds
like an echo
Let me walk you through this painfully
A girl walks home alone a night
A girl walks home alone at night smoking a cigarette in case she needs to burn someone
A girl walks home alone at night smoking a cigarette and then is not alone
because
four separate men at four separate spots
on the girl’s walk home - which should be alone - they
lean into her leer and
in slurred French
demand
cigarettes
Non! she says
before
scuttling off
to resume walking home alone
One follows her for a short while but
she walks fast and
he is not sober
so soon once more
A girl walks home alone at night
keeping as much distance between
her
and the three
loud inebriated boy men
ten metres up ahead
A girl walks home alone at night and
does not look up when the
shouts & taunts & catcalls
are fired
and the battlements she erects everyday
are besieged
A girl walks home alone at night and
spotlight eyes
swerve curve serve
her up to
midnight’s mouth
A girl walks home alone at night and
prays
all the way from her
cobble worn souls to her
thumping chest cavity to her
hot armpits secreting fear
all the way up to her
blood swamped skull that’s
p u m p i n g these words
over & over
here’s how it happens, here’s how I die, here’s how it happens, here’s how I -
Executive Producers
Sue White
Karolina Ristevski
Daniel Henson
