All of these men

saying that if these were regular men

they’d be in prison

I had to leave my home when I was three

father showed up with a gun when he found my sister, mother, and me,

kidnapped my sister and me,

the police did nothing,

because he technically had custody,

had family that said we should go back,

because he had money,

mother reported him in a different state,

when he beat her,

they sent her home with him,

we keep the paperwork in boxes,

never knowing when we might need to know,

about his horrors,

he got the courts to not let me go to therapy,

because he couldn’t approve the therapist,

bribed the judge,

wondered why it was a different judge,

I had to be nice to him,

to talk to my sisters and see them,

to make sure they were okay and alive,

he died at 83 in a hospital bed,

and people at his funeral still told nice stories about him,

they don’t put them in prison,

because there are men like that in charge of the system