Fragile Women

Posted on May 2, 2004 in Poems

This is inspired by a long list of people I’ve known in life, a composite portrait if you will. The patterns are repetitious. I used to take the blame on myself for every incident. Now I do not do so any more.

I am getting tired of fragile women

the tears, the shouts

the fingers pointing at me

saying

you stopped me from writing

you stopped me from being myself

you stopped me from licking the sky.

I’m tired of the interruptions

the small talk during serious issues

the serious issues during small talk

the threats

the demands

the insistances

especially the one that says

I can’t say what I really think

or stand up to their being unfair

or apologize when I have been a jerk.

I’ve seen them tolerate worse than me

stay with rapists and sluggers,

men who call them “bitch”,

who insist that they have a place and keep it.

They scream about their men

until they leave

and when they find they have nothing

to scream about, they go back to them.

I feel they would only like me

if I raped them, beat them, called them “bitch”,

but because I don’t, they go back to the men

who do

leaving me

who never hits or chains

forever.

I’m so tired of fragile women.

They act so much like fragile men.