Eve in the Garden
I never asked to be the daughter
Of an apple-eating serpent-loving temptress.
Or to have these child bearing hips
when the ladies in the magazines
All look like starving prepubescent boys.
Still, I remember the night when I found
Blood-red splatters between my snowy thighs
And my mother didn’t make me do the dishes.
The boys- oh the boys- they learned
To whistle at these roses budding relentlessly
Over our hearts. We learned,
In the face of a shaking finger,
Shame to show even the earthy ridge
Where these hills meet. And boys,
They learn to fuck like rabbits when and where
They can and with no consequences.
We learn to writhe in agony, a week each month
With this wound between our thighs. Bleeds
For days deep red and impure. I’ve become
A temple meant to hold the sacrament of life
Yet I never asked, hoped, or prayed
To be a mother. This fear of these words
Planted deep in the vines
Of our minds. This fear of these words—
Slut— Whore— Cunt—
Rings never ending and I’m the one
Supposed to carry this child
For nine months in my belly,
That’s too soft for these boys- My womb
That wakes me in the small hours of the night
With piercing pain no man understands,
Bleeding blood society says is impure.
Twelve weeks of the year
This pain, the blood
Nine months to carry children
Of men who suffer never, point the finger
Shouting whore when we embrace
Sensuality that we were also born with.
Somehow we tell these stories to our children,
Written by men that claim we originated sin.
Claim even that it took one rib
Of the perfect man to create us.
I can’t help but wonder if maybe
They told the story backwards. My mother
Used to say these struggles of women
Only made us stronger, but this wound
Between my legs and the suffering buried
Somewhere deep in my curves leaves me wondering
Whether its strength I’ve found or weakness
Via, imagineadreamer
