1.
The first thing is the most
important thing.
Only you care—
I don’t. I want something
good, hard,
shamefully obvious.
Picture millions of women
violated.
The intentions point to need.
Listen, I am the truth.
People deserve
to be let down.
2.
I have a lot.
I’m beyond.
I did owe him.
I carried him.
All these years.
Fueled by privacy.
Women have loved.
Men choose.
To live.
I want my own.
3.
I came
when I learned
anyone
needed
my absence.
All women
regret
hope.
Speak louder,
trust me.
I want,
and I plan.
I need
that anger.
My President,
perhaps I disappoint.
4.
huge
huge
enormous
long
often
predator
my flaws
5.
True,
I never learned
that power.
Asking
isn’t a question.
These women—
I have
run from them.
I left
these women
cautious, disabled.
They tried,
I think,
to forgive,
which is nothing
to me,
a man given
to hurt.
And I can
hurt them all.
I love you,
my only
anguish:
people who have given me
anything I want.
*An erasure of the statements made by Senator Al Franken, Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Tambor, and Louis C.K. after they were accused of sexual misconduct.
Chelsea Bunn is a poet and educator living in New Mexico. Her work appears in publications including Snapdragon, The Big Windows Review, Dogwood, Georgetown Review, and a forthcoming anthology by The Right Angle Publishing. She earned her BA in creative writing and her MFA in poetry at Hunter College, where she received a teaching fellowship, a Norma Lubetsky Friedman Scholarship, and taught creative writing for eleven years. She was selected as Thinker in Residence by Art in Odd Places in 2016 and was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize twice. She was born and raised in NYC, and currently teaches poetry for Santa Fe Community College and UNM Osher.