Deployments and Foreign Women
I have watched the other women here write poetry, pen and paper, in notebooks similar to my own. Sitting on coffee shop couches or on mid-morning strolls, they pour out their thoughts. Though their handwriting is more elegant, god sent calligraphy. Their language is more elegant, they speak in lustful tongue, smile on their face.
They are more elegant, god sent bodies.
I am American bred, I speak in coffee and contempt, rejection and rage. They are macchiato masterpiece, good wine in dim light. I write in dominance, independent façade. My eyes remain harsh, staring at their mouths, listening to them speak rough draft writing in broken English, words unfamiliar on their lips just so I can comprehend. Translation a little off, I just like to hear them talk.
They are chivalrous, confidence unwavering, sunshine aura.
I am in a unique place here. Amongst thirty different nations on a NATO base lost somewhere in the Balkans. There are so few of us, I see the same people on my walks to work, we nod good morning out of respect.
With only a sixteenth of us being women, there is an unspoken language that requires no words, no poetry, no pen and paper. A language that lingers through eye contact, through strong core posture, soft smiles. A language that screams in passing, “I will look out for you, stand by you, we are woman”. A compromise, an understanding, an unspoken rule, we fall to our knees to no one, and especially not alone.
They cling to me like children, knowing the rage of the American woman, the young American woman. They would never ask for help, but they plead with their eyes, “don’t let him follow me, don’t let him belittle me”. The American woman, good at subtle hints, better at standing toe to toe to foreign men, to domestic men, confidence unwavering.
I watch women from thirty different countries take notes on American women in notebooks that used to house poetry. We are poetry, we are the topic of conversation in foreign tongue, we are role models, and spitting image of lost hope.
We are briefings that men from other nations get, “Stay away from American women, they are sex appeal, and lust, and bad news. They report sexual assault at a rate higher than any other nation.” All I heard was rape women from other countries, they’ve learned to keep their mouths shut.
American women are heard at a rate higher than any other nation because we’ve learned to yell, bitch and moan. We are sex appeal, and lust, and bad news, but we demand it to be consensual. We demand the right to scream for other women, be their voice too.
American behavior in European streets, shove grown men off of their feet. Thanked in private by soft spoken women. Tell her to keep writing poetry, tell her she is soldier, warrior, worthy of more. Twenty two years young, never thought I’d be the one begging women of foreign forces to stand their own.
Constant combat for a peaceful deployment, the war on women.