Who Am I When No One is Around?
Voices call
from down the hall.
I’m sure I don’t know them at all.
Yet still my heart is called to days
I locked myself in stalls
and prayed.
Just asking for a simple glance
From boys I didn’t stand
a chance with.
Truth, I feel still like that girl
who knows she’s not
fit for this world.
A voice just said he’d ask her out.
Oh, back in high school I would shout
and call for pity for a heart
too scared, too shy, too sick
to vouch.
For me my heart is much to weak
for leading on, for simple streaks
of best behaviour (still no-good).
No man should love me.
No man should treat
me with kindness without pay.
However, if one chose to stay
I'd be a perfect little girl
with begging eyes,
with spiral curls.
Oh why,
oh why,
must I still cave?
To simple lines.
To re-used phrases.
All those tropes I’ve grown to loathe...
Still deep inside
I’m so alone.
So I will bat my eyes and plead
for any man that will concede
to take me on as burden woe
to work me ’till I have no soul
and will I be so fulfilled then
when ring is placed, when vows are said.
When in a house I’m wast’ing way
and wondering if another way
could have been carved
had I not feared
The life, a woman,
so congealed.
That did not center on a man
I know some do it
I know some can...
I’ve friends that love women as well
and love though daily they face hell.
To Hell I’ll surely go as well
for with a man I’ll never dwell.
A worse thought I could not conjure
when to depths my mind oft wanders...
Lost amid the mazes dark
of hurtful past,
of wounded heart,
of crying soul,
of past begin.
Oh why,
Oh why,
Do I always cry?
My period. It's coming soon?
I have lost track.
I’ll ask the moon.
The moon betrays me, as does all.
When deep I trust,
through shall I fall.
So birthday cakes and bright balloons
I hope will greet me in my room.
A party I’ve planned for myself.
A gift I’ve hidden on the shelf.
Inside, a note whose print reads just
“You need not marry
you’re on the cusp of
greatness dear!
Oh, don’t you see?
You’re close to finding
who you're to be.”
So when the families scream and shout,
and he curses you:
Shut them out!
For a feeling is valid
if it is there.
Though no one sees it.
No one cares.
I care,
like women you don’t know.
For you don’t realize
How far this goes.
There are women held
and women caged
and women trapped in rooms of rage.
Dear, you are not the first to feel
the weight of life that grinds your wheels
and hate that drags you
down,
down,
down.
Its not your burden,
leave that town.
To seek bright lights of cities glow.
The castles pink.
Each bathtub, rose.
Of sweet, kind looks on the metro.
Love, hold their doors and speak their retro-
active regrets.
For you know
a secret kept just grows like mold.
A never ending tow’r of tears
can never lift you,
He won’t hear.
He does,
I should not speak that way
He's not forsaken you that way.
While women fight though life unheard
He’s sent us roadkill, sent us birds.
Each image of a lovely thing
that we don’t get.
We’d never sing
the songs in keys of chickadee.
No we’re not listn’ing
You and me.
But
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A heart does ring!
Is it a friend?
Is it a thing
that’s sold on shelves in hardware stores
or on TV?
Do we need more?
I need not march if I shall die
with no one with my name who’ll cry.
The other women who have died
to let me sit here sit and to lie.
I shall not be a sour girl
Of hateful heart
desires, cruel.
I’ll live more kind.
I’ll live more soft.
I’ll live more loud.
I’ll live more oft.
I’ll be a woman who can say:
"Voices, who cares
what you say."