WOMEN DESERVE THE #MeToo Movement*
I.
In my entire gay-male life
I’ve had only 4 men inside me
2 were boyfriends
2 were rapists
Women deserve the #MeToo Movement
And yet some men can relate
II.
But how do I tell this to my Italian-American family?
How do I tell this to the world?
Maybe this poem is my megaphone
Or maybe it’s my sanctuary, my peace, my survival
III.
No more omerta
(“Your silence will not protect you.” –Audre Lorde)
*Dedicated to Louise DeSalvo for teaching me how to write to survive.
Bio:
Michael Carosone is a writer, educator, activist, and native New Yorker from Kings Bay/Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. With his partner, Joseph LoGiudice, he wrote and edited the book, Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian-American Men (Bordighera Press, May 2013), which is a collection of 15 personal essays on the lives of Gay Italian-American men (his essay appears in the book). His poems and essays have been published in a variety of books and journals. His poems have appeared in Gay City Volume 1, Gay City Volume 2, Gay City Volume 3, Avanti Popolo: Italian-American Writers Sail Beyond Columbus, The Gay and Lesbian Review, Out of Sequence: Shakespeare’s Sonnets Remixed, The Good Men Project, Positive Lite, HIV Here and Now, and New Verse News. His essays have appeared in in White Crane, Strangers to These Shores, and various anthologies. His articles have appeared in Gay City News and The Huffington Post. He was awarded the Editors’ Poetry Prize for his work in Gay City Volume 2. He writes on personal, political, and social topics and issues, including marginalized peoples and literatures, especially Italian-Americans and people of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) community.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 