Thoughts on Being

Over the last several days, weeks, and perhaps my entire life, I've reflected on what it means for me to be a woman in the United States and in the world as we know it. Growing up, throughout my many lives; a young girl on a tiny island; a blossoming teen in an even tinier small rural town; to a seemingly older and older adult chasing bigger and bigger cities; I have been predominantly raised and inspired by almost exclusively women. After my parents divorce, I was raised by my mother and grandparents* with on and off weekend visits with a father I wasn't allowed to be alone in the same room with. I was active in Girl Scouts, Women in Engineering (during my ill-fated stint as a chemical engineering major), Society of Women Engineers (yes those are different), and a sorority. I was surrounded by friends, mentors (like my high school chemistry teacher who I seem to be more and more like every day), and family that showed me all the many ways a woman could be. None of which were incapable, fragile (baring how we as humans are all fragile), dumb, or helpless as the rest of the world was trying to convince me.

It wasn't until I was older, more alone in the world, away from my mother who always mowed the lawn herself, built our front porch with her father, and loved me more than words can express, that I really had a taste of what the patriarchy wanted me to be. I had encountered the odd comment or tradition, especially in the church, as I was growing up, and was generally aware of this certain inequality, but none of that held up to the pillars of strength and fortitude of women that were right in my home. Away from home I saw the looks of mechanics, older male classmates, bank tellers, and men on the street who were no longer dissuaded by the force of my mother and grandmother's presence. The more I ventured out in the world, on the internet, into politics, the more I saw the true evil of misogyny ingrained in our society.

This has been coming to a terrifying head over the last several years (although it has been there long before, let us not forget, the past is not our friend nor savior). Tiny, day by day, and large, sweeping, erosions of woman's agency and personhood have revealed themselves through the ugly acts of the men we allowed in our government buildings. The spotlight has been thrown on the little indignities in a woman's life; at the doctor's, in the workplace; on the street; in their very homes. With the #metoo movement, the growing confidence in reporting sexism and SA, the growing political and social power of educated, socially conscious, and empowered women; men, predominantly white, straight men, have felt their manufactured relevance and power slipping little by little. This, along with the growing power of people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community, means the straight white man can no longer unfalteringly walk in the world with others under foot, holding him up, which, to him, is unacceptable.

With the unpopular, unprecedented, and baseless overturning of Roe v. Wade by the current (illegitimate, thanks Mitch McConnell) Supreme Court of the United States the rights of women in the US have been reduced to less than that of a person, less than that of a corpse, less than that of a clump of cells. This is a concerted effort from the fringe extreme right wing party in the United States to exert control over those they deem less than. In this case they are targeting women, but it won't end there. We must take action. Donate to abortion funds, women's resource centers, LGBT+ resources (like the Trevor Project), vote in your local elections, and BE ANGRY and DO something. They want you to be sad, to quit, to give up. Don't let them. As for me, I've never let a man control me, and I'll be damned before I do.

Usually on this website (and most websites), I just post my silly little love poems and go on with my day but many of the poems I have been writing have been deeply influenced by the pain I and other women have felt throughout our lives and due to the Supreme Court decision. Below I have complied several new and old poems that represent some of these feelings.

Poems on Being

...a woman

A Woman’s Prayer

Red down my legs

The life source rouge running

Coating my fingernails and smudging the corners of my mouth

My sacrifice unquenched the fury of he

That takes my body from me

So I claw out the soft parts

And feel life gushing down

Into the palm of my hand

Down to my elbow

Down into hell

Where my sisters chant demon songs

And wish for my fast return

Each drop a wait, wait sister

There are more incantations

More tomes to master

More cherry drops for you

Hot and sultry warm wanting

Just watch me tear slowly, slowly

Gnashing teeth so pearly white

Ferocious and, oh, pout painted scarlet

And, oh, so perfectly paired

With, oh, that crimson stained just the way

They like it, they hate it

They beg for it, and the rubies dug now deeper

Flow like rivers reviled on my fingerprints

No power held like this before

In the heart line’s long curve

Nor head line’s stubborn turn

So lithe is she vermilion painted life

Lined unrepentant I see

Before the last garnet glimmers

To fall my sisters unto me

At last revenge made all at once free

@apoem2you

*this poem was previously posted on my page here

Heartbroken

I’m so heartbroken I cannot speak

I’m so heartbroken I cannot cry

Not a tear nor a sound

Can pass this hour

Just silent crumpled agony

Contorting the little space between my brows

Just quiet and forlorn

Not sloppy or raucous

Demurred and downtrodden

Almost pretty even

I suppose, just how they wanted me

@apoem2you

Words Like

Words like heaven on her lips

Soft silky sweet dew on her tongue

Glittering pearls and lost diamonds

Caught just at the gate

Not quite earthbound like gemstones and sun

Words like hell in her eyes

Burnt smoldering black char in her gaze

Punishing cold and bright coals

Seventh circle to hold

Such punishments paid full by the moon

@apoem2you

Dear body

Dear body, I see you

You’re changing again

Ever so slowly

An agonizing trend

I look at you with fresh cut eyes

And wish on you with best kept lies

But this time I see

With every inch

Of mirror and camera and secret pinch

Myself more true

Or, hopefully, too

In ways I never knew were you

I see you reflected

Newly aligned

With vision clearer than looking behind

I want to look and see the truth

Not something I wish or seek to rebuke

You’re growing but different

And I’m growing too

Older and taller and smaller and you

And just today, I just want to say

Dear body, I see you, it’s ok

@apoem2you

*This poem was previously posted on my page here

...a daughter

Mother, Dear

Mother constant

Mother dear

Mother always there to dry my tears

Mother open

Mother’s here

Mother always listen to my fears

Now mother, please

Oh mother me

Mother can’t you hear my silent pleas

Mother see

A mother knows

Mother do you have what daughter owes

Now mother misses

Mother minds

Mother can’t mother a daughter's crimes

But mother’s might

And mother will

Find mother’s love my deadly ills

@apoem2you

Wildfire

That man didn’t raise me

He couldn’t if he tried

I’m too wild too free too searching to be

Something he could never see

I need to fly unhindered

And all he knows is a cage

He represents the bars behind

Which my sisters labored to break free

The steel cage of my childhood

And to the lock he’s hidden the key

I cannot be contained within

For I’m no songbird in the trees

I'm the whole wildfire, don’t you see?

@apoem2you

A Child Like That

I’m sure I was a child like that

One with wonder drawn on days

With joy questioned in no way

But I was so young you see

It was so so early for me

The crack in my smile

The drawn back in a while

The harsh light white

No roses or posies or other innocent sight

I’m sure I ran on the wings of the sea

With a child’s abandon and glee

Taking each step no questions indeed

But I could just then walk

And could just then talk

When I struck on sharp shards

Shattered pink realities guard

And lost enough innocence to lose part of me

@apoem2you

*Luckily I was raised by both of my grandparents until my grandfather sadly passed when I was in the 8th grade, he was a very gentle and kind man. If more people were like him, the world would be a better place. After he passed my immediate family consisted of me, my mother, and my grandmother.

I would also like to mention I have wonderful friendships and relationships with many men in my life that I wouldn't give up for the world, relationships with men have simply never been centered in my life. <3