2 minutes and 30 seconds by Marlena Chertock

This is a cry for the eternity of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This is a fuck you scream to the man who used that time to hold a knife to her throat at 10 a.m. on the train, told her to go to the back, unzipped his pants and put his demon dick inside her. For 2 minutes and 30 seconds, from Wheaton to Glenmont. This is a shriek to those who dared to keep this a secret. Someone was raped here. And will that change anything? A bellow of when will it finally be enough if it’s not enough when kids in school or the Yazidi girls are kidnapped and raped. A cry of how can we expect anything to change when a man with 4 daughters only thought of her as a place for his meat.

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Marlena Chertock is the Poetry Editor for District Lit. Her first collection of poetry, On that one-way trip to Mars, is available from Bottlecap Press. Her poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Fat, Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction, The Fem, Moonsick Magazine, and Paper Darts. Find her at marlenachertock.com or @mchertock.