"Piñata" by Pages Matam

I selected Pages Matam's "Piñata" to recite. I wanted whatever I chose to be meaningful, and while certainly all poetry is, to some degree, meaningful, I would argue that not all poetry can be meaningful to all people. "Piñata" is a poem about sexual assault. It's a heavy topic. We don't want to talk about it, because it's hard, and it's terrifying. It's all hypothetical until it happens.... But the statistic is 1 in 5 women in the United States will be raped in their life time, there are about 590 girls that attend Harpeth Hall. 1 in 5 at Harpeth Hall makes 118. It's not about the math, but about how the math makes this seem more personal. The turning point in this poem is when Pages says "tell the eight-year old me…"; and the audience realizes that he was a victim of sexual assault. No one ever thinks it will happen to them. People always it will happen to a friend of a friend of a friend, but with these kinds of numbers, no one is going to have the luxury of all these degrees of separation.

The extended metaphor in this poem is obvious. "Tell the one in three women of this world that you will not make piñatas of their bodies." There's also polysyndeton in the final lines, which puts a true emphasis on the vicious cycle that starts with sexual assault: "years and years and pills and pills and poems and poems and even death." Like many spoken word poems, this poem is free verse. 

Pages Matam's poem is so hard-hitting because it shows a broad spectrum: from talking about internationally known stories like the Mahmudiya rape and killings and the story of Elisabeth Fritzl , but the hardest stories are the ones closest to our hearts: as Pages cites the stories of his students: Lauren, Mickayla, and Andre. 

We live in a world were if victims decide to speak up, they have a higher probability of being silenced than listened to. If we could listen, how different would this world be.

"Pinata" was inspired by a painting of the same name by Tina Mion which you can see here:

http://i1.wp.com/flagartscouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Pinata-one.jpg

"Piñata" by Pages Matam 

To the man on the bus I overheard tell a woman in conversation - presumably a friend:

"you are too ugly to be raped..."

...Dear man on the bus,

Tell the one in five women of this country, that they are beautiful,

their four counterparts, spared torment ugly.

Tell the one in three women of this world,

That you will not make piñatas of their bodies.

Watch morsels of them, spill greedily

to the famished smiles of your ignorance

Shaped like bloodthirsty children. How your words

Hit repeatedly, until they broke open

Like a shattered papier-mache cradle

How their blood flowed like candy until Hollowed inside

Jaws mangled into misfortune from when they tried to scream

For their Legs torn into a crucifix

Loud cry of eyes muted

Tell them how beautiful their silence is.

...Dear man on the bus

From smothering cat-calls,

to quickened pace of trek home

Raped with a dress on.

Raped without a dress on.

Raped as children, who couldn't even dress themselves.

Tell them how ugly their consent was.

Tell the depression, the post traumatic stress

The unreported. Tell Mahmudiyah,

A footnote in the history of crimson Iraqi sands

How beautiful the military's silence is

Cloaked in how we don't ask, and they 

didnt tell, in the name of country.

Tell Elizabeth Fritzl

How pretty the flame of her skin was,

that turned her Father a torturous moth of incest

'til she gave birth to 7 choices she never had

...Dear man on the bus

Tell my 11th grade student, Lauren

That she wanted it, her beauty had them coming.

Tell my 7th grade student, Mickayla

That she wanted it, her beauty had him coming.

Tell my 3rd grade student, Andre

That he wanted it, his beauty had him coming.

Tell the 8 year old me,

The God in me I loved fiercely was so gorgeous,

that cousin twice my age,

wanted to molest the Holy out of me,

Peeled raw

until I was as ugly as she was.

Rape is a coward hiding its face in the make-up of silence.

A murderous fruit, that grows best in the shadows of taboo.

A Vietnam prostitute with red white and blue skin,

A murmur of bodies left vacant

by the souls that spend years and years  and pills and pills and poems and  poems, and even death

trying to learn to reclaim them.

...Dear nameless assailant

How this bus carries the burden of your stick and blindfold Patriarchy 

that has only taught you to treat women like ceiling strung jugs

Violence claws up from your throat,

Like a monstrous accomplice to the 97 percent

that will never see jail 

...Dear man on the bus

As these words fall out of your mouth,

I pray no one finds your children beautiful enough

to break open, making a decorative silent spectacle out of them.