Self and Society: A Poem for Gail
Do you wonder where the self resides
Is it in your head or between your sides
And who’ll would be the one who will decide
Its true location
“Darkmatter,” by Andrew Bird
Young woman
Self is your being
wrapped behind chocolate colored wrappers
just bubble gum pink cheerful smiles all the while inside
You strive
Self is beautifully hidden under lock and key beyond three caverns and one gnarly dragon
You will never be able to find it alone.
Society will be there every step of the way to make sure you find the self they want you to.
Self—The irony
society will always be keen on placing their two cents into your soul’s piggy bank
make your nickels and dimes and quarters seem useless.
For those pennies are more easy to find on the sidewalk you are traveling on
Our society has defined your self-worth to be as high as how long you have lied on your back.
You have become nothing more than a flower
To be plucked and ripped and shredded and beheaded and it is something for us to say that they were wrong
Instead of right for us to say they were wrong
Wolves who walk like men will want to make you a “real woman”
there will be wolves who will shy away for that very reason
you’re not a real woman
in their eyes those pennies amount to a lot real fast
no one asks for your thoughts for that is a penny and not worth nearly as much
The hole in between your legs is the definition of what you were meant to be
Young man
You remember how it came to this
When you couldn’t find purpose in the words of the metal face
Cause the bed kept breaking whenever you tried to listen to it
And the fighting man you were was laid low when the TV screen showed you all that you should know.
That your skin means you need to be a beast to be shot down where you stood, a man of abs, a slab of
meat, one who could hang women from his chest like some Christmas tree
It was never enough for you to simply be.
So you threw out all the musings of the stars, let the thing that hung down between your legs control you
It owns you, like nothing ever had before.
This was who you were destined to be
The black beast, the machine, anything save a man who dreams and cries and sleeps and dies no
You are the animal, your heart is bitter cold and the only thing you live for is to mate
Even when the night comes round and you lie in your bed awake thinking of those you’ve been hurting
with your lies and your cheats and the sighs and the beats you are the beast
Sleek as silk, but less than filth,
Swinging between your legs is the definition of who you were meant to be.
This is what society gave you, but this is not what makes you
Society has never been so loud and so wrong
My young black children
With stars in your eyes and universes in your mind and nirvana in your touch
the books you have read and memorized
Your keen habit of seeing if numbers are divisible by 3
Your ability to rise and bend and thrive and grow and bloom after bloom after every cold winter and unrelenting summer shows you are alive.
You are more than your physical mettle you are more than your outer shell you are a soul of unfathomable power and you are more
Revel in it
Remember it
Breathe it in
Let society….Go