Jacklyn Janeksela
the panel is a witch hunt.
it comes for the clitoris of a body not even theirs.
it says how far the legs were spread or if the legs were spread in the first place.
it claims there were brooms and salves, potions and spells when there were none.
the panel is ready to burn something, it has a match ready.
the panel is a hangman.
don’t cut the panel down or let them slip from the knot, despite the panel’s trickery.
the panel’s blood has left its body, the heart a mere muscle memory flexing in the face of tears.
let the panel bleed all the way out.
the panel is a police state.
there is no body that’s too good to convict of wrong-doings.
there is no body if the panel says there’s no body, even if the body is animated, breathing.
there is no crime despite fingerprints up and down thighs and knife in hand.
the panel is an academic, it has no soul.
the panel gyrates on its on ego, it masturbates to the sound of its own voice.
the panel is misogynist.
it thinks it knows birth because it has touched a uterus with a finger, a pen, a penis.
it thinks it knows vagina from vulva.
the panel feels autonomous but it is part of the machine.
the panel does not read, it does not write, and it does not feel.
the panel is a machine, it shuts-off when convenient.
the panel costs too much money, a sum most humans cannot understand.
the panel says all sorts of things, none of it is true.
the panel does not know a body that’s not theirs, even if it appears like the others.
the panel siphons off, it skims from the top.
the panel is paid to say that.
the panel is a commercial selling whatever you want and don’t want.
the panel cannot make up its mind for the panel does not have one.
the panel skirts issues and says which skirt is classroom-appropriate.
the panel yanks a cord from between the legs and calls it life.
the panel likes the color gray.
the panel looks and sounds human, but it is a conman and a ghost.
the panel scares regular humans to death.
the panel laughs when it should cry, the panel lacks compassion.
the panel whispers behind backs, it breaks backs, it breaks things in two.
the panel divides, it divides and conquers.
the panel is an empire on the verge of crumbling.
the panel is a bully. its belly full of rot.