How To Find Balance in a Woman’s Life
You speak of balance
I scan the horizon
Think of the playground see-saw
How to balance the larger child
With the smaller child?
The length can’t be equal
The larger child
Has to be nearer the center
To balance the weight
How to find balance in everyday life
The TV shows us an ugly man
Makes fun of an attack victim
The crowd laughs
I awoke writing a letter to my Daughter
To say how to avoid being the victim
Don’t be out alone
Don’t be out after dark
Don’t wear sexy clothes
Be careful what you say
Do not talk to strangers
Avoid men when you are out
Do not make eye contact
Be very careful
Why is any of this a balance in a woman’s life
Perhaps we need to examine our society
White male patriarchy
My Daughter asks how can this be right
I have no answer…
October 3, 2018
15 comments:
If we live as if the world we want is already here, we are in danger ... Black Lives Matter, Me Too ... you name the minority--as you do in your poem--the ugly, the ones many make fun of. I love your use of the seesaw, which reminds me so much of a kind of affirmative action. We notice the imbalance and adjust for it. And thank God for the ones who fight so more of us can be free.
"Don’t be out alone
Don’t be out after dark
Don’t wear sexy clothes
Be careful what you say
Do not talk to strangers
Avoid men when you are out
Do not make eye contact
Be very careful"....Is it everywhere like this? I thought it's only where I live! It's utterly sad. Sigh.
Yes, one wonders if in other homes, people are saying to their sons "treat women with respect, be a gentleman, no means no, women are not objects"? Well done, Annell. I am sickened that crowds will laugh at such behavior, toadying to a terribly unwell, horrible man and his insatiable ego.
Annell, I hear your words. As if, they're being spoken to someone new, in the transcommunity, to avoid becoming another stat on the police blotter for trans hate crimes.
I don't want to live my life, always filled with fear, but I do. Especially, as reality has been such a cruel teacher. So my poetry speaks for the scared woman that's writing this.
Theresa, all women are scared. When a man wants to rape, he doesn't care. I am sorry Theresa, I am sorry for us all.
What is most concerning to an outsider is that leaders and politicians are being partisan regarding the matter which is now before the courts. Let the judiciary do their job (hopefully fairly and unbiased) without bias and interference.
"Don’t be out alone
Don’t be out after dark
Don’t wear sexy clothes
Be careful what you say
Do not talk to strangers
Avoid men when you are out
Do not make eye contact
Be very careful"
Yes, it's infuriating. I've been trampling on those rules for years and have no regrets; I know how to shut a guy up, pleasure or pain being up to me. Yet I'd still tell my 19-year-old sensory-impaired niece to follow those rules. Hiss.
Theresa, all women are scared. When a man wants to rape, he doesn't care. I am sorry Theresa, I am sorry for us all.
Priscilla I think men are afraid of a woman like you!!! I am proud of you. It's funny I don't think anyone ever told me those rules, but there they are, and we all know them.
Dear Susan Thank you for your comment.
We model for our children everyday. Makes me wonder about the parents of Judge Kavanaugh.
Men as a whole are seriously in need of education in these matters. One of the ways of giving it is for more women to take measures to be ready and able to dish out a painful lesson to those that step over the line.
I read this poem a while back, but wasn't able to comment then, and have since been a bit off kilter, but I really wanted to come back here and say just how amazingly powerful this is.
I, like so many others, don't appreciate (which is a polite way of scratching the surface) the "content" - the subject matter, but can whole-heartedly appreciate how deeply you've reached here, and have given voice and light to it -
and I was so struck by the idea of waking from a dream in the act of writing a letter ...
this part of the poem is just so "everything"; it embodies the strength, the wisdom, as well as the pain of having to offer these words, as well as the anger, of necessity ... and it also speaks with a tenderness that is hidden, softly whispered, for the prayer, of "being/walking" safely in the world. It is truly a very impressive poem Annell.
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