Saturday, November 12, 2011

Mind Purge by Poetry

Defined
I am an empowered woman
Or so I have told myself,
But how empowered can I be if
I allow the actions of others define
Who I trust?

I was told as a child the man was head of the household,
He was to provide and protect the family he created,
And the man who chose to be my father,
Who was a mirror image of God on Sunday
And lied and cheated on my mother on Monday
Left when I was 9 to create a new family that fit his need better.
This was the example of what a man was supposed to be?

The man child who took in my broken mother
After her knight in shining armorer abandoned her,
More my age than hers, threw tantrums like a child
With the strength of a man, and the lust of a teenager
Who tried to turn his attentions towards me when she
Could no longer fulfill them, but ran like the child he was
When I protected myself with magic and blade,
Another example of what a man was supposed to be?

For mates I chose the abusive manipulative men,
Talking, breathing replicas of my fathers
Whose faces I associate with the words and wounds
Burned into my memory like a branded piece of property
No longer owner of my own identity, defined by
Their voices as they rewrote my character with adjectives of
Worthless, stupid, weak, bitch, idiot, useless, mindless,
Lazy, dumb, disrespectful, disobedient, whore……
And the more I tried to become who they wanted
The more I disappointed because no change was ever enough
For the man who was supposed to love me.

I contorted and twisted trying to conform into the vision presented
Of the perfection of the puppet mate they sought,
An actress compromising for the starring role,
Only to find my heart yanked out of my chest,
Causing a pain so deep that my emotions went numb
With departing words like, “My life sucks because you breathe air,”
Or the tender kiss goodbye with promises of tomorrow,
As he knowingly walked into the arms of another,
While I sat in confused bewilderment…what about me?

I found myself in Goddess, in fellowship with women
Who were just as lost and broken as I,
Proclaiming our injustices at the hands of man,
Blaming God and church, preacher and Father
For taking our identity away, defiling our womanhood,
Hating them for hating us,
Claiming we were accountable for ourselves
But using “men” as the bane of our existence.
Finding comfort in loveless sex singing,
“all acts of love and pleasure are her ritual”
Looking for love but sabotaging our own efforts,
Forgiving them in words but harboring hatred in our hearts
Because we, I , could not trust myself to trust a man.

I am an empowered woman?
How can I claim a Priestesshood in Her name,
If I place her creation, man, lower than myself by not trusting,
but prejudging because of gender?
How empowered can I be, if I continue
To allow the words of the past to define my present?

Silver Wind Woman
11.12.11

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