An ode to a dick

What is it about being born with a penis that makes you such a dick, 

I was raised to be a nurturer, I assure you it isn't an attribute of my second X chromosome, 

What were you raised to be? A hunter? A gatherer? A purloiner of low-hanging fruits? 

My 'no's were sifted out of me early, just like your empathy was ironed out of you,

My mother, she thrust upon me the unrelenting urge to acquiesce,

Your mother, she gifted you her universe, you at the very centre,

For too long now, you have felt like the light, like the source of all gravity,

Let me shatter that illusion just a bit, 

Just like you did my trust, pushing past needs and thighs just the same, 

Penetrating, Penetrating, Pene-fucking-traiting

What is it about being born with a penis that makes you so entitled?

Is it what makes me, a  cunt, such a sucker for punishment? 

A cunt you want to fuck, a cunt you want to fuck with, 

Another planet to orbit you, another cooing breast to nestle in, 

Another salve for your peach-like ego, 

Another glutton for a life of servitude,

Serving you, who is 'blessed' with a penis

What is it about being a penis that exempts you,

From all those shackles that have disfigured my body and mind?

Who burdened  me with shame? Who acquits you of all blame?

What gives you the right to ask me to hide myself, when you are the monster that hunts?

Hunts in the night and in the day, on the streets and in my home, 

from my bedside and from the unknown, from childhood to menarche,

What gives you authority over the clothes I wear, the choices I make, the thoughts in my head, the words that leave my mouth, the colour I paint my skin, or the way I sin?

You say you want to protect me? You say I need you to live comfortably? 

You say I need a thing with a penis?

Save me your #notallmens and your repugnance,

Save me your disdain and your benevolence,

Save me your pity and your chivalry,

You weren't born with it,

You don't need to be more man,

Any more than I need to be more woman,

You'll only be a prick with a penis,

Unless you can step up and unstrap that,

Unless you can be more than that,

That thing that makes you  a dick with a penis

I woke up last night at the witching hour,

Neither with a jolt, akin to the plucking of an unwitting, un-ripened fruit,

Nor gently strirred out of slumber, like a cloud unveiling the moon,

When I woke up last night, it was as if I had been awake all along,

I wondered what had woken me; I wondered whether I had been asleep at all,

Yet, here was the fresh memory of my subconscious gestating within the soft folds of slumber,

I could almost taste the warm tones of its tranquillity;

I could sense the flutter in the exhilaration of its dreams,

I could still slide into the longing of its afterglow,

But here I was, a-woke at the witching hour,

What woke me, I couldn’t say,

It could be any number of things, a multitude of reasons,

Like life flashing before my eyes, so did the permutating possibilities,

They didn’t matter though, these reasons,

When I woke up last night at the witching hour,

Neither jolted, nor gently stirred,

Lying awake in my bed, still as the stillest of nights,

I knew,

Once I was asleep, and now sleep had left me,

So was I once in love, and now love has left me...

Jasmine Stains

 

My hair smells like jasmine,

From the wedding I went to last night, 

When I tethered my untameable hair with flowers,

I will never be a bride again, I will never be a wife again, I will never be tied nor chained ever again, 

My hair smells like cigarette smoke, and as I stood in the rain, 

Draped in silk, and grey clouds escaped my red lips,

A man told me that it was erotic, which he thought was a compliment,

They ask me what my husband does, 

I hate how defensive I sound when I say, "Actually, I'm a single parent."

In case you were wondering, 

Their ‘Oh!’s are the colour pistachio puke, and taste like discomfort,

I can see the question in their eyes,

"Which D was it - death or divorce?" 

They wonder which is worse,

Once the faces told me,

"Leave him; he doesn't deserve you;

You don't deserve this pain,"

They didn't mean it of course,

You see, leaving is not a woman's prerogative, 

It does her well to cast her eyes downwards and dye herself in fragile feminine forlornness,

I have a reputation these days,

Of being a seductress, 

Of being a temptress, 

Of being a skank, 

Because the tattoos on my body, 

Because the promiscuity of my skin,

Because the debauchery in my eyes,

Make a man consider leaving his wife, 

Make a man fall infatuatedly into my arms and between my thighs,

Make a man an adulterer, and what he does with me will only ever be illegitimate,

My reputation makes no allowances the state of my shattered heart, 

My reputation disallows the consensuality of this 'seduction',

My perceived immorality does not deserve the same forgiveness as his,

After all, I'm collector's item, a crown jewel, 

A dusty curio on a dustier shelf,

That thing between my legs must have no will of its own,

A thing to be protected (read possessed), 

Or a thing to be prosecuted (read persecuted),

My father says, it's irrelevant whether it was the leaf that impaled itself on the thorn of if it was the thorn that pierced through the leaf,

The damage is always bourn by the leaf alone,

The leaf being a 'woman's character', 

The thorn being any of the ample barbed fences on which a woman can impale herself, 

I've thrashed against so many fences that I am now a sieve, 

All light passes through me, in and out, 

It's pitch black where I am, so forgive me for lighting a fire, 

There are as many 'type’s of woman as there are grains of sand by the sea,

I'm an ocean of unknowns to you,

You are not eligible to name me,

My flesh is on fire, with smouldering sexuality,

So unless they want to fuck me, they absolutely hate me, 

And even then they don't like me so much, 

Desire is a man's turf, right up there with moustaches and Adam's apples,

I'm the apple, I am the snake, I am Eve, 

I am the vibrator nestled between flimsy, cheap lace underwear,

I am the shame, of saying I came,

Though it's not even funny how much I didn't! 

My tongue is drugged from a decade's worth of answering,

"What's for dinner?"s and "Where is my ________"s,

I'm more than the answers to these questions, I think,

Yet, I've got generations worth of guilt in my soul,

For being too busy, for being too free, for having friends, or not having too many, for indulging myself, for not indulging some significant other, for not knowing how to be woman enough, or being too much of a woman, 

Damn! I'm more than this guilt, 

I want to put down this burden; I am exhausted from carrying it,

I'm got boxes, and barrels, and tanks full of anger, 

I've got the superlatives embellished with expletives of this anger,

I've got screams, I've got battle cries, I've got bellows that rot from this anger,  

And I try to summon my inner duck,

And let it all roll off my back,

And all I'm getting is my inner wolf, 

And my haunches are raised and my knuckles are white, 

And I hold tight on to my little girl's hand, 

And promise myself she will be stronger than me,

And promise myself that this stain on me is not something hereditary,

And I tell her, 'Baby, house doesn't always win,

Not if you refuse the oldest game ever played,’

My hair smells like jasmine,

And smoke, and soot, and thorns,

And lace, and sweat, and perfume,

And spices, and blood, and milk,

And paper, and dirt, and tears, 

And all the things that make me much more than what's between my legs

And now that it's done,
All I have left of your love,
Are the dregs in my soul,
And the bitter aftertaste of crushed hope

So many songs sung about you,
Poetry that blushed pink only for you,
The skyscraping claims, the conspiring whispers of your name,
They have all been in vain,

Now they ask me, 'What happened?'
I shrug and say, 'It didn't work out',
It betrays you, me, and what we used to be,
To have these years reduced to those words,
Four words that replace three,
'I love you', 'I love him', 'We are together'
All gone and now,
There are no words, there's only pain,
And there's the fear that I might never love again

Purgatory

There are so many definitions of hell,
Mine's wondering if you'd have fought harder,
Had I been someone else

The things we do,
Just to be held by someone

I'm not sad,
Only how the eyes sweat,
From this heart's toil...

Subterfuge

A spectrum of human emotions,
Red was never my colour,
Moth to a flame,
Along you came,
Now you've gifted me anger's hue
All this red will dye my heart an icy, cold blue

Frozen crystals on the cheeks,
Sweat trapped beneath cold skin,
Warm memories escaping vapidly,
Red help me be whole again

What's love but this life's inferno...
Abandon hope all ye who enter
(In the least, note thee thine nearest exit)

A day for love they say,
I look through photographs,
From time long gone and gone again,
I gorge on self loathing feeding
On the ruins of my self,
All that was once shiny and good
Has been plundered and lost
Worst kind of gambler and chorincally irreverent,
Ive bet it all and lost it all,
Around the curb you'll find me,
If you look carefully, and see past the grime,
Take a good look - say oh how the mighty have fallen!
It's a day for love they say,
It eludes me, it eludes me in every way

Some day, not far from now,
You will lie against the softness,
Of a woman's breasts and whisper
to her the things that I did to you,
And she will hold you like I do,
And think that she will be different

A buzzing in my ear,
A voice that says, 
'you could end this'
'you don't have to keep going'
'imagine: never having to open your eyes again'

I swat at it, hastily chase it away,
No, not when there are small hands,
That need to go around me each night
Swat, swat, swat, swat them away

But I acknowledge the buzzing,
I see it looming around me,
Tempting me with the thought of release,

I could sew up the tears of course,
But it feels like old, worn, fabric,
It's split everywhere, gaping mouths,
Open in eternal despair,
Where do I begin? How do I pack it all in?

What's inside is too large to hold,
It pushes past toad eyes,
It saturates and exiles each hair,
It seeps tellingly into the skin,
It bulges into layers of excess,
It threatens to rip, it promises a kill

I hear the buzzing,
Maybe it won't kill me, maybe it will.

Thespianism vs Hystrioncs

Dear diary,

I'm pretending to be happy,
I'm bringing the fucking sunshine,
I'm shitting them fucking rainbows,
I'm dancing the twisted foxtrot,
I'm reining the torched up lowlands,
I'm biting the cursed red apple,
I'm lapping the withering daylight
I'm winning the voluptuous nothings,

21 days makes anything a habit,
I may be losing my own fucking bet...

I drove by your house today,
I don't know why I did that,
I'm a sane woman, no really I am,
Yes I am, and yes, I did that

Nervousness electrifying, hair stood on end,
I remember another kind of electricity, a carnal flushed red,

Don't know what I hoped would happen,
Don't know if I wanted to catch sight of you,
Don't know if I wanted to be caught out instead,

Some excuse perhaps, to defend,
What you mean to me, what you meant,
What you will mean, when it's the end,
To scream and shout and un-relent,
To have a name for what we are,
To declare war, to uncleave the scars,
Or perhaps just to catch a glimpse,
Of pictures in the flesh, of the life behind the lens,

As is was, it was all for nothing,
No catching or getting caught,
No glimpsing, no screaming bouts,
A circuitous route to come up bare,
No one knew, not one cared,

I won't drive by your house again

Oxymoron

Loving you to soaking wet pillows and wanting nothing to do with you by the light of day.

May be you'll never know,
Why I need that something more.

No. Love is not enough.

Saying you love me behind closed doors.
Is not enough.
Saying you're here when I'm always alone.
Is not enough.
Telling me you care and making me wait.
Is not enough.
Asking me to fight and forsake and forbear.
Whist you hide and hold on and huddle up.
Is not enough.

I have outlived your closed doors.
I have outgrown your bedroom walls.
I have outcried your flailing claims.

I have a name that exists beyond your whispers,
I have a strength that needs to be met with strength,
I am not the choice you should shudder to a make.

Not now. Not after so long. Not this way.

No.

More.

Mmmmmmm

Open-wide

Legs
Mouth
Fingers
Eyes

Sigh...
Can't remember why
I ever needed a guy

Gaslight-lit

I am outside the door again, knocking... begging to be let in,
Belatedly I bite my tongue, 'Why did I have to say that?'
Detachment is a thing of rigrourous practise,
I held the magnifying lens of my love to that one soul,
That which is brittle and dry and combustible, this was all meant to burn,

Once upon a life my drawbridges were drawn, my moat was a cauldron bubbling machine steam,
Point is there was a line, point is I knew how to protect myself,
Point is I was not vulnerable, point is I was the queen of my shoddy castle of lichen,

Why did you coerce me to unfurl, why did you dig pitchforks and spades where you had no business?
Why did you make me believe that anything meant squat? You didn't need to, I had given you everything,
Maybe it's like a slasher movie, one that's embarrassingly bad - but you have to know how it ends, right?

Now you have mowed down all my walls, and I'm crying but you won't take my call,
'Episodes' you say after you've sunk your dagger to the hilt within my flesh,
Twist it again and tell me you love me, once again and tell me you'd do anything,
Tell me that I am crazy, tell me I am insane, tell me that it is grotesque,

I didn't think that you were the hurtful kind, so tell me what is my crime,
I am doing time, standing outside the door again...begging to be let in 

I need to get on a mission to reinvent myself

Honesty - a bunch of dusty curios on a shelf

This heart of mine is a dreamer, a sentimental fool

That's a messy combination - as is now plenty clear to you

I'd thought that you had seen it, chosen me all the same

But that heart got it all twisted, and now I've come off as lame

I am here - always grateful and always sorry

There's not much else left to say

That I love you more than ever

Won't make the lameness go away

I'd cut off that thick, pulsating vein 

if  only I didn't have dues to pay
For me it's far from over, I will love you

Day after day after day after day