My children are wild weeds
Brought up to seed dreams
Strong spirited like the oak
Crafting wisdom as the owl
Adapting flow within winds
Ocean tide ebbs and swells.
My children are wild weeds
Brought up to seed dreams
Strong spirited like the oak
Crafting wisdom as the owl
Adapting flow within winds
Ocean tide ebbs and swells.
It must be enough to maintain my own, rather than being required to account for others’ lack of responsibility.
In order to be allowed to stay with a brilliant man, I needed to not exhibit my own brilliance.
“For the good of the Realm.”
That’s what they always say.
Then, it’s expected that the person they claim to love will stay there holding court for them, supporting them while they go off and breed with some demoiselle of “proper ancestry.”
Well…
No.
“For the good of the Realm” be damned.
I shall not dither about waiting for the one I have loved with all of my heart to cherish me as much as I cherish him.
Being handed off – traded – for younger skin and womb that has not borne children is the greatest insult ever to a Woman.
(It needed more venom; more anger; more assertion)
She had fled in order to not
Experience that pain again.
Bereft and somewhere deep insane, I wandered the streets between parlors of damnation and intermittent toilets tossed from buckets as streaming liquid sheets of putrescence.
Stumbling lost, dismissed as just another dreg for the dogs to feed upon or the wretched to bed, I was somehow left unaccosted and fumbeled through those darkly smoke-ridden, dismal streets until they one day just faded away into the open, rolling green vales of countryside.
As the rain washed away all traces of stench from me as if cleansing my soul for redemption, I happened upon an elderly farmer needing help with his dairy cow’s milking.
Since then, I bathe in the light of sunshine.
Contemporary Show Tune
By Athena Stairs
December 18, 2023
I like not having to be perfect
For some guy who’s not worth it
I can walk with a swagger
And not care for the latter
I can look upon my face
Without any makeup splatters
I like being in my own body
With my own choice to be good or naughty
Escuse as I digress
My hair it is a mess
And in my middle age
I can be haughty
I like having freedom of expression
Without going to a counseling session
I can say what I like
Without worrying if it’s right
I don’t need your help
I’ve got my own critic
I like when I get up in the morning
There’s nobody to tell me I’ve been snoring
I don’t have to cower down
For worrying that you’ll frown
At any imperfection
Where you’re looking
I like saying no to the callous
Men who seek the prize of my chalice
You can go away
It’s sunny out today
I don’t need you to compete
With my prowess
I like being happily expressive
It’s so much finer than to be quite pensive
Forgive me if I’m proud
When there’s no one around
I don’t need your vote
My life is kind of nifty
I like being totally chaotic
I get to play and be my own methodic
I can flit to and fro
Wherever I may go
In grandiose
I almost feel bionic
I like being subtly distractive
I realize now no other way I can live
So get out of my way
I’ve got something to say
Though I pine for love
I guess it’s time I shelf it!
_____
A spontaneously created show tune that I came up with one day to help offset the pressures to conform as a woman in today’s society.
_____
(No permissions to use without my direct and verified consent.)
When she’d had her own someone, the nights had not seemed so long, and the days gave meaning to enthusiasm.
At least she could still return to the Garden and experience delight in nature’s laughter.
She had fought for so long to keep pushing back against the influences of psycho-logical influences programmed into her internal messaging that when the migraines came, all she could do was fight harder in anger and extreme vexation, challenging the pain.
“Though I could not change what was happening to me, I could stand up for others.”
“I am marked by this original wounding – of greater impact than my other in my childhood because of how it shook every foundation.”
Had her mother or grandparents supported her trying to protect those other children?
She couldn’t remember due to the pressures causing her memories to fold inward into convolutions.
The angry calls and accusations at doors, the implied if not direct chastisement in deztroying a dream for everyone at the clubhouse once deemed “picture perfect.”
Not surprisingly, it was the misdirected ire of the wives which did the most gossiping damage.
(Title ref to “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…”)
Maybe had she stayed with her grandparents instead of moving North with her family, the spell would have been broken sooner and she could have regained her status.
But, as with the life pattern she seemed destined to keep repeating, disruption and missed timing kept winning.
One of the most conflicting presents she remembered getting for Christmas for the holidays was a beautiful polkadotted, flared skirt party dress meant as the crowned jewel icing for any event.
Yet she had thought it the most cruel, tainted joke of at her expense, even though she could feel her grandparents’ intentions had been loving.
For she had been branded pariah, outcast.
She did not belong to the poorer society where her mother had obtained housing, and she was no longer included in highborn because of her legacy.
Even as a child, she’d had an intolerance for predators harming innocents.
“You have such a brilliant, instinctual and natural emotional intelligence – but you need more windows in your mind for an open view.”
Shivering in pain and yesterday’s fears projected onto today and tomorrows, she tried to console herself that it was better to be alone and bear these imposed burdens, rather than be wrongly accused for crimes that she hadn’t committed.
The impression found her and emblazened its messages upon her parasympathetic empathy, thereby compelling her to see what she could not easily believe while forcing her to carry the torch for others who could not flee.
It has been said that to find the key and illuminate the lock may open cealed doorways to the soul for claiming one’s redemption.
But what awaits on the other side, and why were those doors barred in the first place?
Buried too deep and supressed by centuries of intimidation by terror tactics, memories of abuse’s atrocitities enacted against children echoed throughout spectered and darkened hallways.
“I know who the ghosts are now, mother,” whispered the child the demons stalked in occluded dreams who’s mother could not acknowledge the truth to help and release her.
For she had also been branded and harmed by these sins.
“A friend commented today that dogs have been bred to love and serve man.
I acknowledged this and then added, “‘So have women.'”
Whilst we might not experience the progress we desire to see and are striving for in our own lifetimes, by being aware and present – by being diligent and contributive – we may turn the odds to future generations’ favor, and live each day knowing that we are heroes.
It’s not so much anger, but of trapped energy stiffled and swelling as the gag is shoved into the victim’s mouth while they are forcefully raped and pillaged.
Anger comes later, when it is often too late.
For we have been bred to be lambs for the slaughter.
Battle scars and injury in today’s society are seen as percentages decreasing the worth of an individual, rather than proofs dictating bestowments of honor the valiant deserve.
“Wherever I go, whenever I can, if I see something wrong or make a mistake, I try to contribute an inclusive, kind word of understanding or go out of my way to make ammends.
I may have been born into an imbalanced society, but its trends will not dictate my actions, nor cause me to condescend.”
Noting upon her demeaner that no man could easily fool her, of means suitors avoided her, seeking easier prey.
What had begun as youth’s indoctrination became, over time, insanity’s proclamations.
“I have attempted to live a virtuous life in hopes I could avoid the mistakes of those who’ve gone before.
But as it is with The Commons, others’ participation in upholding The Contract is required – or else we all fall, once more.”
On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43816/to-a-mouse-56d222ab36e33
“‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men’ had not considered a woman capable of thinking outside of the box – let alone, leaving the maze entirely.
(Quote by Robert Burns, “To A Mouse” 1785)
Whilst she had asked him to denounce his mistress (and soon after learned of the curse cast upon her by the poacher), she later realized that she had obtained an unintended revenge by the woman’s having chosen to return to the liquor-soaked brothels.
“There’s also a reason they say, ‘Age Before Beauty,’ for beauty is fleeting and will be reaped as if it is a mere few crops of the seasons.
Age before beauty.
Maturity before beauty.
Accomplishments before the fluff – before the cream which can just easily be whisked away.
Add a little sugar on it and it’s quickly eaten.
Gone.
Ravished by what brief grace of space and time it was granted.
Age is what grows.
Age is what delays.
Age is what stretches out time when our life is so fleeting.”
“I do not care to know what others have written before – except along my own lines of interested investigative inquiry!”
“There’s a reason they say, ‘It’s the pits,’ when all we are left with are the ragged seed kernels that were once surrounded and amply engulfed by life’s sustaining fruit.
Sex is the main issue.
A woman may have a higher form of love – that which appreciates her – if she finds herself with either a eunuch or homosexual man of status who craves societal acceptance and comfort without chastisement.
Or, she must be of a certain youthful age and as yet untarnished, whereupon her “cherry” shall be plucked and consumed by an older man at his whim (likely not to her pleasure) whom she is pressured to marry with very little emotional, spiritual, or physical compensation – except perhaps physical security and assurances of providence for the resultant offspring.
Or, as in the most common ‘arrangements,’ she must suffer the debased assaultations of either one or more uneducated and unwashed louts determined to keep her beneath him/them in a state of relegated survival dependence.
Only in the rarest of circumstances will ‘stars align,’ allowing two well-matched-in-love partners to find each other…and even then, if they are capable of being ‘true,’ society unleashes its wolves upon them to ensure that their love cannot propagate.”
She observed that those who played with transference did not fully understand its power to destroy nor heal its acolytes.
Ten years younger vs. ten years older: twenty years garnered in a man’s favor.
She learned to selectively choose her allies and to wear loneliness as a protective shroud.
November 3, 2023
“We all have them,” she thought to herself. “But it would be better if the a**holes would shut up so that we could hear the Angels.”
January 16, 2023
From the quiet, damp moss lining the curve of a small river channel under a busy street corner bridge; to up onto the grass along the side of a house where two small sheep-pigs snorfle, mind calling to each other in excited child-like voices of adventure; and further into a densely leafed tree as join the feather-fluffed warmth and shrill warbling of a bird calling out for new opportunities.
February 21, 2022
“I Need Not Fear The Dark, Anymore…
I hear their wicked voices laughing and crying, crowding the outer rim of this thin barrier’s bubble around me, begging and pleading that I allow them to feed upon my needs and implant seeds of greed into my subprogramming so that I become a font of spreading their viral infection..
But, despite the inflamed agony of retreating further into this wounded body without room to avoid searing pain, I will nestle deeper into my own suffering, pulling it close around me as if it were a blanket’s comfort to avoid ever slipping again.
For I have found the source of light incarnate, and he lives and breathes in this dimension.
By our dedication and devotion, we will conquer all of this internal and external destitution.
I will burrow deeper into my sorrows of lost past tomorrows so that I may no longer be swayed by memory’s compromise – because my love will soon be with me, and we are going to help save the world.”
She could focus on a project if she made efforts to get ready and told herself she was leaving – for then there was not the same pressure placed upon her staying.
She had not done any wrong, so she had to find a way to stop feeling as if she had.
“I never realized that you were so intelligent!” he exclaimed, regretting his previous oversights.
“You never looked beyond what you projected onto me, and I – wanting to be inclusive – allowed you to take credit for concepts which expressed half of me, and only showed you the part I had which you were lacking…which, of course, you rejected.”
She headed by curving paths and unmarked routes to the part of town where erudites, artisans, and debaucherans congregated, knowing full well that those she fled would not venture there to find her for fear of tarnishing their esteemed reputations.
“I Do Not Want This – Get Out Of My Way!”
Her arms flailed as she struggled to cast off the societal brainwashing smothering her free will’s need for self expression, and as her feet found firm purchase, her legs took her running wild through stifling corridors to burst out suddenly onto the open streets.
Her struggle to manifest self identity was thwarted by absence of clear reflections of her individualized identity. For there were no others like her that she could see, and any evidence of their prior existence had been completely hidden or erased from history.