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Part Two of my Tales of TERF Island miniseries will be coming soon (I swear), but first, I wanted to share a poem I wrote. It focuses on the ugly side of the sport I’ve grown to love and stems from watching the NHL playoffs and getting updates for the 2018 Canadian World Juniors sexual assault trial. Oh, and also, Coach Joel Quenneville getting hired by the Anaheim Ducks, not only giving me another reason to boo them when they come to play the Flyers, but also showing that, to quote my own poem, the boys club culture at the heart of men’s hockey will “let them come back when they say they’re sorry enough.”
behind every successful man is a woman
wrong.
Behind every picture of young boys hoisting a trophy for country and career,
Is a woman who they raped, coerced into saying all was consensual, then the program paid her off, then,
After outcry from a country obsessed with young men shooting
Pucks into a net, becomes a part of the 1% of sexual assault survivors who get a fair day in court
Jury still out on if those men, who were once boys, will get a fair sentence
History tells us to expect only a trial, no justice
Men excuse men’s actions by citing mental health
Witnesses will say they can’t recall if they aided in raping her
As if a fog came on them when they went into the room, the room where cheap blinds block out the darkness, the room where she consented to one but not the others, this being the room the others knew to throw
Behind every picture of a man hoisting Lord Stanley’s cup is
A wife who hides his bruises while wearing his name on her jacket, watches him become not only her batterer
But also beat up bottles and sieg heil for his only God
Tacitly accepts the reason her kids can’t visit aren’t from the grind of putting pucks in the net
But because they can’t stand sitting at the table staring at the hands that slapped pucks and, simultaneously, their mother’s flesh
Yet another woman watches another of Lord Stanley’s anointed leave for her sister,
Choosing to avoid family gatherings for her own happiness,
Can you blame her? I hope you don’t.
Remember, you can always be her.
Behind every dynasty’s a perfidious bastard who’s unnamed
For the sake of keeping it clean, while he molests more teens
At least they’re not women is the tacit unsaying
When sunlight exposes the vampire, giving a rot
Give those who let the bastard stalk a few years in timeout with their funds
We’ll let them come back when they say they’re sorry enough.