Seeing Red (tw:sa)

Today I am not 

feeling gracious

or forgiving

or in any type 

of hospitable temper

that would become

a “healed” woman.

Today I am shaking 

with rage as I drive 

down the highway

from my children’s school,

as I stop at a red light,

as I see red,

as I go home 

to paint my lips red

for another hour

in front of a screen

being my best version

of a hospitable woman.

Today my mind

has caught me by surprise

has run wild in

remembrance of 

me and men,

of me at 18, 

me at 24,

me at 33,

of me as the

object of men’s

anger, men’s delusion,

men’s violence,

of me as an object.

Today I see him again

playing silly and cute

and laughing the same

way he would laugh

if he had just won a game

of Monopoly with his friends,

as if I am not his game,

as if he is not holding my hips

where he wants them even

after I have said no. 

Laughing in the way

one would who says

it’s not wrong because 

she didn’t scream.

It’s not rape because she

didn’t kick and bite 

and scratch.

It’s not violence because

she froze.

Today I see another him

as he stands,

a five ton barricade,

in front of the door,

as he calls me a whore

as he tugs expertly

at every small, mighty

thread of my intuition and

tells me that everything

I know in my gut

is only in my head. 

As I hear the loud thud

of his shoes on the 

wet pavement that I have

just run barefoot across

in the dark. 

As his shadow in the

fluorescent street light

fills me with 

paralyzing dread. 

Today I am not a healed woman.

Today I am a woman on fire.

Today dozens of hurts, dozens

of years have chosen this 

one moment, this one day

to cry for justice,

to demand their pain 

be given an amphitheater

and the armor of a gladiator,

have chosen this day

to demand blood.

Today I am not the healed woman

who ties up the end of a

poem neatly with the pink 

ribbon of grace and hope.

Today I am seeing red.