When 'Me Too' means 'Us Too'

The 'Me too' movement emancipated
several wealthy American actresses,
who after years of fame were the first to cry 'foul'
about the tactic of the casting couch,
even though said chaise long
had long been there,
ever since Hollywood started.

But these privileged people were only the start
of breaking the grip of male sexual values
built on male secrecy, humbug, and hysteria
from those who controlled all the money
who had to get what they wanted
without ever having to ask for it.

Many ordinary middle aged men and women
who were abused in their youth also found
that they now had the voice to complain
about their former abusers when previously
they did not, and the sense of being wounded
seemed fixed, as permanent as was secretive,
for lack of language to describe it.

And now as we raid the graveyards
of the institutions of the past
in which was invested morality and power
once again we find the skeletons of abuse past.

Payback for these crimes against the self
of the powerless has a long way to go yet.