Ode to Margaret Cho

I’ve always liked comedian Margaret Cho. I saw her perform in Fairfield, CT, a few years ago. After reading the interview by Danielle Bacher, Margaret Cho Gets Deep About Past Sexual Abuse: 'All I Have Is Ownership of My Own Suffering,’ for Billboard, I like her even more.

Jessica Chou from Billboard

There is such an honesty in her art and performance. She is someone who it seems is truly being real and being herself. She has found a way to express herself through different media—comedy, song and prose—as she needs them.

I see her as a role model: she says what she thinks and feels and experiences without a filter and then finds ways to express and heal through her art.

This piece is inspired by hearing Cho talk about her childhood abuse. She helps me feel like I don’t have to censor myself so much. She makes me feel empowered to express what’s real.

Rope

The rope he used to tie

my thin white arms

behind my back.

He leads me into small cold bedroom,

pushes me down onto dirty sheets—

ones his mother gave him with little yellow flowers.

It’s dark except for slants of light

crossing in from living room.

I’m on my stomach,

choking on flying feather balls.

Tears are soaking the pillow.

He ties my ankles together;   

it hurts, it cuts into my skin.

He opens the left side door of his closet

takes out his brown leather belt

it was hanging there

he’s making sniffling sounds

I can smell his Marlboro

I am crying and I am saying

do it do it do it whatever it takes

whip me whip me

the words pathetic, clichéd,

but that is what I said

he is he is he is he is he is he is whipping me  

honestly and it makes this slapping sound

this cutting feeling on my back

on my buttocks

I didn’t know he’d do it

so hard and he keeps it on going

now I’m saying      

please stop I love you oh god oh please oh stop  you’re high you don’t know when to stop

then just like that I hear the belt’s buckle

clink on the tile floor and he walks

out of the room and I smell his cigarette

smoke again.  I peer back over my shoulder

but it’s too dark to see the welts

then there he is his face

pink red and his blonde hair spiky

he stares at me with cold marble eyes

takes his belt off, pants off

I’m crying and he comes

over to me and fucks

me from behind

while I’m crying lying there

This is what rape feels like.