heartsick is she of decades of

scars inflicted by brut tongue of

the one she pledge her love to openly

under a cloud of heavenly and human witnesses,

asks Jesus for mercy, but is not content

unless she begs him for her own private space,

he says she is his property, she has no papers

where he had to wear her name,

and it only cost five crumpled dolllar bills for he man

to claim state's rights; a fistful of

twenty quarters so she could be recognized as

legally HIS, like his 1989 cared-for Camaro.



and life has changed them both,

but he thinks she should always be the same,

shy, silent woman who needed to be married,

who needed to feel validated, yet he feels

absolutely no need at all to allow her

for speaking feelings of her own?



who else is she to talk to?

who else when he can't stand her man-friends,

al least they listen, like Jesus listens to him

when he's guilty enough to read God's Word. . .



he loves to make her feel worse that she does,

feels no shame when he sees the tears in her eyes,

the sight of it gives him a greater sense of power,

the same kind of power he gets when he

cuts her off in conversation, unwilling to listen,

unwilling to submit--



everyone knows that no strong man submits,

even when he's wrong, and knows it.



he damns her midlife hormones to hell

hold her face pillow deep into forced submission

the law will look the other way,

so will her preacher--he dares her to tell

what others will think is an overblown spat,

a misunderstanding

on the part of her willingness

to give, but not to grieve;



her frail wrists have experienced both

the softness of his touch

and the harshness of his testosteronic logic

to the breaking point, but try and try as he might,

her strong feminine spirit will never be broken,

she's endured worse verbal torture

from those who called themselves

the master race, but even the master race

had gender issues ignored by all men,

regardless of social strata--



:he tortures her with words,

"bitch, you'll be sorry if I die and

you never said you love me!!!"

jus' HOW is she supposed to feel?

is this a true symbol of love,

the love from the text of the bible

he reads right before he offers

prayers for communion every first day

of the week? why cannot a man take

blame for driving a woman crazy to the point

where choking her oppressor

just to have some inner peace, even in the wake

of murder?



madness would be a worthy plea if the judge

is moved by the tears of a woman.



he says he is tired of her insensitivity,

if she'd give him more time,

he'd give up GENTLE-men's clubs. . .

maybe she wouldn't mind so much

if the models looked more like her,

but see, they didn't have thinning hair,

nor were their uncloth'd silhouettes
rotund in the middle
from bearing unplanned children,

nor did grayish hairs crop up
from the stress of taking

everyone else’s blame,

remaining close-lipped--



a bruise to the lip in the struggle,

this time for being the reason that

the family is in debt, if only she had a job,

but no, any job for his wife would not do,

to smart to wait tables, or dip tenderloins

in scorching hot vegetable oil, but still,

she managed to survive the third degree

verbal scorching of his heat, and in her mind

still echoes the lie:


"why you bein' so mean, bitch!

you'll be sorry if I die tonight and

you never said you love me"



sometimes she wishes he would die,

and out of a contract agreement to

love honor and cherish 'til death,

she's in for the long haul, will take

the remarks that slash at what's left of the heart within her,

bleeding royal purple that no one will recognize

as worthy of valor--



once the essence of what once was

is drained, taut and dry, she will learn

to turn out the light in her dependent quivering soul, because

it hurts to see the double-edged words

aiming at her, at her, again

and again

and again,

she hates to eat his slanderous charade;



she knows he thinks he is superior,

and bears the preferred chromosome of the master race

whose breed can never say "I'm so sorry baby" and mean it. . .

they just keep lyin' to themselves,

call themselves righteous

for being a good husband,

not lusting after other women

unless they are naked and spread-eagled

on the so-called artistic "sexploitation dot coms",

confirm fake feminity with the assistance of a handy wipe,

and shame on us for being silent about

the sorry piece of man who confuses us with a chew toy. . .

and so with left eye slightly bruised, and

the welling of tears finally drying from their hidden ducts,

she prepares for the morrow,

the worship day,



pretnding not to hurt,

she puts aside the rage one time again

too many, and looks for the lipstick

that she saves for these special occasions,

and the color on the bottom

of the tube says "sacred". . .it was a

color that she purchased just for

him, but it blends with the tint on her swollen mouth,

and she continues to pretend to every soul around her,

and she is glad that Jesus fixed it

so that women live longer than men.


© 2004 by cynth'ya lewis reed
all rights reserved. Rageaholics and Rage-Anon Home Page