This time it is
exactly what I want to see.
This time it is
My priorities, not his.
Whatever I want life to be,
my choices and philosophy,
This time it is.
Another rondelet. The speaker of this poem has a bit of a declaration here! 🙂 I have met quite a few women over the years who’ve fought to overturn programming and embrace their independence.
She’s eighty-nine
and now she tells the story of rape,
of giving up a panopoly of dreams
for the baby boy.
(Shot gun wedding)
Love and happiness can’t be forced,
like sex.
Society forced her silence,
condemned divorce,
when she refused abuse,
and sought in the ashes of her dreams
for a phoenix.
Bitter choices,
dream fragments,
cobbled into a life,
grumbled about now.
Dream stealing beast,
a boy who wouldn’t hear no,
seven decades of curses
don’t erase the bitterness
of loss.
.
.
(true story)
Since “me, too!” has spread,
What has changed
is that I see you differently.
I see me differently.
I hear, “She does that stuff; I’m working”
and I’m filled with fury at yet another man
who does not see what work is,
how everything he is able to do
is because his wife carries him on her back.
and I say, enough.
If we are going to be beasts of burden,
let us be more than mules with bits in our mouths.
Let us be more.
Let us be the partner who is heard.
Let the children be his concern as often as they’re ours.
Let the pink jobs and blue jobs become purple jobs
as they swirl in a kaleidoscope of
our jobs.
Our mutual obligations.
I’m glad you do the laundry and clean the kitchen,
because I hate those jobs.
Thank you for agreeing that poetry
and winding words are more important than dusting.
When your words reflect a patriarchy, I will remind you
who I am.
When my words cut, you may wrap your arms around me
and remind me that you have feelings, too.
Let’s stand as role models that being a man does not give
you rights over anyone else,
anyone else,
anyone.
Listen men, to what she says.
Keep your hands to yourself
(and other pokey bits, too).
If she says no,
Channel your unwanted urges
into art. Wash them away in
cold showers of reality.
Let your futile frustration seethe
like generations of women seethed.
What has changed, boys?
The very air you breathe.
Short temper erupts
Tiny trouble surrounds
Small smiles: faked.
Insidious misogeny ignored
We knew.
#MeToo told us nothing new.
Those men want us to
Be little.
But something’s brewing.
It’s going to be big.
I am at a poetry retreat, and I have just realized I haven’t posted any new poetry in ages! Here is one that was prompted by discussion around the table last night.
Men are afraid that women will laugh at them.
Women are afraid that men will kill them
~ Margaret Atwood
Confession:
Inside
she is laughing
at his wizened, flapping sword
Ever appreciative
it is not slashing, slicing, dividing
head from heart.
Confession:
Impalement is not a virtue in itself
ecstacy can take or leave it.
Confession:
She desires his desire,
not his possession.
Shawn L. Bird 
sharing July 24, 2017
Tags: assault, feminism, violence, women
Being A Girl: A Brief Personal History of Violence
I wonder how many women do not have these stories in their lives? I suspect there are few if any. We acknowledge these stories, but so rarely bother to stand up to them, because they are ubiquitous. I am glad to see the light being shone on them and the label being attached. Yes, these are assaults. Yes, this is violence. This is why some cultures are so protective of girls, but why, why, why can’t the blame be put entirely where it belongs- on the perpetrators of this violence?
Perhaps because that requires us to look at our own dark natures?
I was recently reading an article that talked about the passive label like “Violence against women” as if there is no agent acting. Where does that violence come from? Not the ether. Let’s label the agents, not the objects of the action.
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