Hideous (Reflections on Predatory Power) - A Poem for Our Times

Image created by Beth using ChatGPT

This poem contains references to sexual abuse and violence against children; if that may be triggering, I encourage you not to read further.

Hideous (Reflections on Predatory Power)

With the talk of molestation, rape, and the killing of children,
the uncovering of a massive failure by law enforcement
is hideous.

And the Department of Justice continues the atrocities,
releasing files with survivors’ identities unredacted
and the perpetrators redacted.

If we want to know how ugly America can be,
we can start here.

As with my refusal to call Forty-seven by his birth name,
I am renaming these files: Pedophile Dump.
Until someone suggests a better descriptor.

Buried in 3.5 million documents from the most recent release
is a child’s diary, scrawled in code,
detailing her experiences with influential monsters,
real monsters, using her body as a sex toy.

And the DOJ takes such care in releasing this child’s hidden words,
making no attempt to break a simple code or redact the diary,
telling the world her words do not matter,
are not important—just as her body
could not belong to her.

The sliver of good from this abuse of power
is that the child names the monsters.

Until the monsters are brought to justice,
I will weep for the girls they were
and the women they have become.

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If you read this and felt unsettled, that discomfort belongs to the systems that failed, not to the survivors. If this was too much to hold today, please step away and care for yourself. I wrote this as an act of witness, and I share it with the hope that attention, however uncomfortable, can be a form of care.