[Mister Saint]: 79.Poetry.Personual

This is kind of a brief summary of how I feel about Western feminism. Written for Ess. It's hard enough to be male when I wish I'd been female from the beginning without the constant guilt trip lobbed against men by hardcore feminists and, lets face it, the hardest of the hardcore are the ones people hear the most. They define the 'feminist movement' far more powerfully than do the moderates, and this is mostly written for them.



Rewriting the Personual


See-saw, between the walls
keeping apart the Skirts and the Shirts.
I climb the divider and skirt the barbed wire
until I can safely sit down.

The Skirts are sitting on their side already.
A pile of them winking and smiling and pleased
to be playing with me.
I hop on my side and together we bounce
with a clamoring sound, off the floor, to the ground.

Another girl jumps on the side of the Skirts.
It's harder for me but I still want to play
so I push to make up for the weight.
Another, another, my legs are on fire
with strain from the gathering mass.

"Rewrite the language," one of them says,
"let's take out the MAN wherever we can."

Another chimes in to the swansong of guilt.
"All that we want is what men always get.
Not asking for much, just a cent for a cent!"

"I've got a career but when I wear a skirt
all the perverts are looking, harassment, I'll sue!"

"Look at that actress's slim slender tone!
That bitch is a slave to a man-centric world!
We want the freedom to eat how we choose!"

"Men are oppressive with ruthless demands
about make-up and pin heels and nail-painted hands!"

I crash to my knees to the side of the saw
as the Skirts keep on jumping, the pile swelling tall.
Ashamed to be male to be blamed for the crimes
of a time when vagina meant human decline.

I wish for the saw to be even again,
so let's take their demands, and make some amends.

"Ladies," I cry as I hop on the saw,
"your depersonds I'll meet, apersonds I'll make!

Take off your makeup and showpersonship.
I'm sorry for all of the thoughts that I've had
about beautiful women all scantily clad.

"I'm sorry for looking when bare legs and cleavage
are willingly put on display.
I'm sorry for all of hupersonity's sins
and excuse me for Hollywood figures.
Forgive me for wopeoples' problems
in which I had no hand at all.
I'm male, and all are my fault.

"Forgive me the most for the worries and woes
of the ladies whose faces are shrouded in veils.
For clitoridectomies, stonings, and profiling
running so wild in the world.
I know its important to eat what you want
while the women of Islam are murdered and maimed.

"I rewrote the personual, just for wopeople
and all that I ask in return is a simple
accord between boys and girls.
Equal is never the same as ashamed
to be male."