Are you following Heretics, Lovers, and Madmen? I will wear red for my sisters whose health is at risk for my sisters who have been raped for my sisters who have been battered for my sisters who are already struggling to feed hungry children for my sisters who need to finish middle school high school […]
Don’t look away because you’ve already made up your mind
hang loose / stay nimble Kingfisher / remain open
this isn’t a soap box and I’m not ranting
this is a page among many pages and a thought among many thoughts
I hope you read it and T.H.I.N.K.
This is for the person who thinks women and girls shouldn’t have a choice
did I lose you with that last line? What happened to the certainty of your convictions?
If you are ready to condemn a rape or incest survivor to bearing their rapists child
and possibly having that rapist fight for custody/visitation and be awarded it
then consider how you might want to give me the time of day
before closing yourself off back to your old way of thinking
after all … I’ve changed my views many times based on EVOLVING
we don’t stay the same, we shouldn’t stay the same
life is not a vortex
so here goes …
What makes you believe a girl of 15 who is raped by her step father should
bear his child?
Because I hear you say on the radio; “The child is not to blame so we should not punish them by murdering them”
and the certainty in your voice
astonishes me
as I think of what it will feel like to be
raped at 15 by your step father, bear his child at 16 and then tell the child at 13 when she is old enough to know, who her father is
watch her face crumple
should that child never exist? She may go on to do great things that is true
But we are putting the rights and the acts of predators before the rights of that 16 year old
We are raping them again
We are telling them you may be an individual but you have NO right over your body
you were raped and now you are going to be given this life sentence
and your child will be too
and yes, that child may grow up to be something amazing
but sometimes we don’t need to know every eventuality
we just need to know what is wrong and what is right
and it is wrong to make a child bear a rapists child if they do not want to
just as it is wrong to give that rapist any rights over that child’s life
there is really … no punishment great enough for rapists and molestors
but we are going soft and we spend far more of our time
trying to undermine the rights of women and girls
and I have decided (call me paranoid if you wish) this is
a conspiracy against women and girls
and before you say “oh but other women think so too, it’s not just men!”
I will nod and agree, because I have seen and heard those other women
in fact one is my neighbor and she said; “I don’t understand why a person has to have an abortion they are just lazy because they did not use birth control”
and I wondered because she is a lovely person and quite bright
HOW she could think this and WHERE that judgment came from
but despite this, despite other women damming other women as they have always done
it is the masculine need to control women that is at the crux of this debate
it is the male led world (still) that tries to close its fist around women’s private parts
and tell her what she can do with her own body
and it is the misinterpretation of what we perceive God to want and dictate
that leads us to condemn, insult, hate, shame, loathe, obliterate
the rights of other women to do what THEY NEED TO DO
and sometimes what they need to do is
have an abortion
and it’s not only in the cases of girls who have been raped by their step fathers
but mothers and wives and adults and middle aged women
who for a variety of reasons have decided
as human beings they have the right to decide what to do with their own body
and if there were a war and there were two sides
and someone said to me; will you fight for our side
despite being a pacifist I would
because I have worked with the women and girls who have come to me and said
my parents did not let me have an abortion when I was raped by my uncle
I had to bear this child and that child grew up knowing I hated it
though I tried not to
and I was condemned again for hating the product of my rape
although I could not stop myself
too much of the burden is upon the women
and I do not think those grey haired men who sit in judgement
would wish to adopt my child of rape or your child of rape
I do not think they would wish to have a child of color
or a feminist or a lesbian as their child
I think they want to turn the clock back to when
women did not speak out or wish to assume any control
of themselves or their daughters
and yet
what they do not understand is
before their time
women were in control of themselves and their daughters
and they flourished
until they were defeated
but as with any battle
there can again be
a revolution
and I suspect the time is coming
when women will once more (they should not have to)
rise up they should not have to)
and say (they should not have to)
to their daughters and their sons (they should not have to)
this is not okay and I am not going to lie down and take it
and when that day comes
I will be part of that battle
and would die defending
the right of women and girls to do what they want with their own bodies
and those who will come at me with
what about the babies rights?
what about the rights of the unborn?
what about how murder is wrong?
will hear me reply
what about your cruelty? Enforcing laws
draconian and otherwise upon the bodies and souls
of women and girls
all because it comforts you to judge
others
rather than yourselves
and who is saying anything about
the men who get women and girls pregnant
and how often they do not want
to be saddled with a child
and this is my last thought on the matter;
What would men do if they were the ones who were
raped and abused and what would they do if they
could become pregnant and had to carry a child
and were told by women
oh you should carry this product of rape to term
and give it up for adoption because it is selfish of you to abort and it is murder
when there are so many childless couples who would be so glad of your
birthing factory abilities, sorry, I mean, unwanted child
what would men say if they were told
I am sorry you were forced to have sex and got pregnant
but you cannot have an abortion
be mindful of the sanctity of life in this overcrowded world
and shut your legs in future
the undertone, it is all in the undertone
and I say
if men were to wake up to that?
there would be abortion clinics on every corner like Starbucks
and that more than anything else tells you what you need to know
if you are still listening
and not assuming you know
what women should do with their bodies
because you possess
the moral imperative
She is nude
Dearticulate
Her nipples graze the passage of her downfall
Blood is dry and hennaed between her thighs
Who stand witness
To aborted possibility cut short
Held glistening above her in crucifixed parody
She will never bear life
It is not her weft and the thick choker around her neck
Tightens as reminder
If she grows swollen it will be from loss not gain
No feeling of a child pushing its way out
Only the deadening cold taste of metal on her skin
A doctor’s “tut, tut” and rough handling, his voice a graze
Staining her inevitable socially affixed shame
She stares out of a small window
Paint pealing like tears on the empty sill
Where a bird sits sheltering from rain
She thinks of him cutting his way into her with flint eyes
Hands around her throat, pulling her apart
A flashlight douses darkness, shining on blood and her hand
Reaching out
She is empty now
Passion snuffed, an ember no longer close to surface
She is an arroyo dried and crusted over
She is a gourd grown without seed
Disappointment is her meal, she is a featherless bird on wire
Dried empty by sun and rinsed of music
Before this, her watermelon body swayed in water-sprinklers
Feasting on her abundance and possibility
All that would be, all that would be
Is laid waste
Tumbleweed and Joshua tree
Punishment and consequence
The rapist will return at night to his wife and
Three blonde children
She will recover from her tears and cuts
Even the shame of feeling his soil enveloping her
But she will never
Never
Forget what he took in miscarried act
What would happen if we swapped vision?
The fridgidity of growth or a certain constraint
Because if you split my casing I would possess less chance
My surround would envelop your shadows and night cross twice
For women have a shorter life and a longer one
Small boned with narrow shoulders and deep set eyes
Stretching barren like a long road through desert
If she could turn the knife around
Press it gently against his steady pulse
Cut out the evil as he removed her chance
To fill her arms
With life
TheFeatheredSleep 