When I Say, “Me, Too”

When I say, “me, too”
don’t mansplain about how some women dress
go into anatomical detail about what shows and doesn’t
insinuate they are asking for it?
Do you know what “me, too” means?

No matter where a woman goes
She has to
decide when to meet eyes, and when not to
feel guilty if she wants to dress pretty
maneuver to keep out of reaching distance
avoid an elevator
an airport shuttle
the parking garage
listen for footsteps behind her
Do you?

You have a brain between those ears
someone taught you right from wrong
that brain can overrule hormones, you know

Do you remember Mom saying,
“Just because all the lemmings
are jumping over the cliff
doesn’t mean you have to join them”?

You don’t have to participate in lewd talk
body shaming
joke that her clothes are asking for it
touch what she does not want touched
require a bribe or payment for that job, that raise
assume her silence is consent

When a woman says, “me, too”
she may shake and cry
reach into the pain
she has tried to bury
remember the stranger, the babysitter,
the boyfriend, her brother, her uncle,
her father

When a woman says, “me, too”
she is your mother,
your sister, your grandmother
your wife, your daughter

don’t make a joke
don’t make excuses
don’t shift the blame

and if somehow my words cause you to
reach inside your dark places
and grasp your own uncomfortable recollection
then hold that dark memory up to sun
examine its razor edges
Its cancerous warts of excuse
place it on your alter
as a sacrifice

When I say, “me, too”
will you repudiate the perpetrator
stop making excuses?
Will there come a day when my daughter
or granddaughter won’t have to say,

“me, too?”