To hear you tell it
You've never intended anything unkind
You've never intended to act like you're the only person who matters
You've never intended to leave all the labor to her
You've never intended to be so callous, immature, juvenile, misogynistic, petty, uncaring, self-centered
You've never intended to betray her trust over
and over
and yet
When she tells you
It's happening
You keep doing it
The dehumanization
of that
So often acting like your father and so blind to it
Too weak and fragile to see anything clearly
Thinking yourself awake
You've never even read bell hooks, Butler, Friedan, de Beauvoir, Wollstonecraft
You've never had to read bell hooks, Butler, Friedan, de Beauvoir, Wollstonecraft
Never had to search for glimmers of your own humanity
Never lived as a second class citizen, subject to all the violence and all the clarity that entails
Never been married to an alcoholic
All the damage
that entails
They will never stop treating you poorly.
They will never stop mattering more than everyone else on earth.
No matter, you
are never not the most affected
Meanwhile the canary gasps for breath
She told you
Lies wrapped in lies, then deep fried
Dried up at the center
The heart, burnt to a crisp
From now on I would like to feel the opposite of diminished
