I love women
I love the way we’re the only ones to know
The extremes of pain and joy
During the birth of our children
I love the way these bonds tie us
Across generations, and class, and race, and traditions
If there is a universal anything existing on this planet
It is to be a woman and to see other women.
I hate modern society
And the way it has separated women
Placing men as the authority in the birthing rooms
When they cannot have the knowledge that exists among women
Creating distance from each other at this foundational moment
And everywhere else, too
The distance becomes so great
That it’s the greatest distance I can feel
Between another human and me
A mother who doesn’t see all the children as her children
Is a crack in the fabric of humanity
The pain women have caused me is greater than any other pain
In thoughtless words, actions, inaction.
The distance fed with malice and growing wider and wider.
I look at the young people around me
Tethered by blood or by proximity
And elevate their lives above mine, every time
And I wonder, where were the women?
Who sat in my position
At one point in the timeline
Instead of gathering me in their arms
They stared at me with contempt
Or just looked away
Like I was different than their children
I wonder how this can be.
He sings, “It's really hard to hate anyone when you know what they've lived through”
And I try to extend this grace
(that wasn’t extended to me)
And I look at them.
Married to men empty of any sign of intelligent life or moral aptitude
A tradition passed on from their fathers
Their blank expressions and heads are so enraging
I sometimes have the urge to slap them across the face and shout,
Be a person.
Women who have rarely had a soft word or touch sent their way
From their mothers
Who suffered at the hands of their men
And the cycle continues.
Daughters reaching out
Across the crack in the fabric of humanity
I try to reach back
But it’s so painful
When you learn
How easy it is to love your children, your nephews, your nieces, their friends, their schoolmates, and every child across the globe that is the same, the exact same, except for distance in miles from here to there.
How can you ignore their hunger
How can you justify their pain
How can you compromise their futures
While you look into the eyes
Of the ones who just happen to be yours.
How did this crack appear
In their hearts
And in our lives
When you know
Like no other truth you’ve ever known and will ever know
That it’s so damn easy to love a child
And they should have reached for you, too,
But they didn’t.
“It's really hard to hate anyone when you know what they've lived through”
I try to meditate on it
And remember:
The abuse
And the addiction
And the neglect
And the broken hearts that never healed
And are too broken to love back.
But I also know
That you can heal yourself
Though you didn’t
But you could have
If you wanted
You can do it
I don’t know, maybe you can’t
But I did it
And you didn’t
So I’ll kneel at the edge of the crack in the fabric of humanity
I will bow my head
And I will pray
I will try to understand.
I will try.
For them.
And I will try.
For me.
