From: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Subject: Re: another poem
Reply-To: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 23:40:48 GMT

In article <2AC73419.19893@news.service.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu 
(Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> "Mom, Daddy's drunk!"  "No, dear, he's just resting.  Why do you always
> have to say that in front of company?"
> 
> "Hey, that was my idea!"  "No, it wasn't.  Geez, what're you getting so
> upset about?  Is your period starting or sumthin?" 
> 
> In both cases, you've been hearing voices in your head all your life and
> been told that they're not really there, and no one else hears them, and
> what's wrong with YOU anyway?
> 
> Think of it -- recovery for having been born a woman . . .

  No, sadly that's not quite right.

  If it was just that, then *they* could *fix* you and you'd
be alright.

  The pain comes when they want to fix you by convincing you
that all that you see that's wrong is only in your own mind,
it's just your perception, it's just your own sufferable
choice to see it that way.

  It's not really broken.  No one else has ever complained.
What's wrong with *you*?

  Daddy only drinks like that because he needs to.  Mommy
only hits you like that because sometimes you do things that
are *so bad*, and it just *makes* her so mad.  Uncle won't
hurt you, he's just going to tuck you in.

  It's not _US_ who are broken, _THIS_ is not a problem,
only _YOU_ think that there's something to talk about.

  Goddess, if only there was a way to recover from being born
a *woman*, and if only being born a *woman* was something bad,
something we could cure, something we could overcome.  Then
we could all live together and be perpetually disfunctional
in ways where everyone understands exactly why they're being
hurt the way they're being hurt, and no body minds.

  No body crys.

  But it doesn't work that way, and there's thousands, no,
millions of us -- yes, _US_, who live with the pain of not
only knowing that _THEY_ are somehow inferior, but knowing
that even pointing out the injustice is wrong, and will
be punished in ways more painful sometimes than the pain
of the injustice itself.

  Point out child abuse and we will scar you.  Point out
rape and we will ruin you.  Point out disempowerment and
we will laugh at you and discount you too -- make you one
of _them_, the disenfranchised who we ignore too.

  Obligatory alt.pagan reference -- Point out that there's
more than the Luthern path to heaven, and you're marked.
Can't get service at the stores, can't get help at the
clinic, can't get police to check out the kids wrecking
your front lawn.

  America has outcasts, just like any of its anticendant
societies.  Our castes of the invisible are just allowed to
live with us, serve us, perform the jobs we don't want.
We don't have special colors of clothing or special badges
that they have to wear, but we know who they are.

  And seeing ourselves cut off from a society we don't
want anyway, the invisibles pick up their own symbols,
Pentagrams, Triangles, MoganDavids, Circles and Brooms and
Axes and Hammers.  We know who we are, and we're everywhere.
There's more of us, the invisible, than of them.

  And they know that.

  Maybe that's why this election is so especially twisted
and confused.  The privilaged have turned their faces from
the invisibles with their symbols and their causes, and now
they don't see us at all.

  >Whew<.  Thank you, everyone, for letting me get that
off my chest.

  Thank you, Janis, for writing your poem.  It's a very
beautiful energy that you've got, to inspire so many and
so far.  Please don't hesitate to post your poems.

  Blessed be, Ciaran.

------------------------
Ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org                      Not an LM spokesbeing

  "... hey but I don't care cause sometimes I said sometimes I hear
   my voice and it's been HERE silent all these years" -- TORI AMOS