Women, We Wait

I have had a really difficult few days.

Feeling like the truth is bubbling in my body and I can't let it out.

Imagine not being able to tell your own story. It makes me want to scream.

I lie there and feed my daughter and admire the points of her ears and the extra cartilage that dimples her lobes, I know where they came from, I loved them on somebody else first. I admire the curl of her hair and her cheeks like her brother's and we lie underneath fairy lights and the neighbours stamp up and down the stairs and every night I wonder am I safe.

And when the phone rings I don't know who it is and I've explained to probably twenty different officers now what's happened this year.

They all ask the same questions.

They've all heard the same things.

I try not to laugh, lest I be thought flippant.

As the woman you have to be conscious of your manner and how you react. Can't be too angry, too confident, too relaxed. Men can rant and rave and let themselves go.

I tell you now I hold myself taut. When there's so much at stake. Some days I am fearless and others I shake.

I'm quiet for now, but women, we wait.

From

A survivor.

Your Shame Is Not My Shame | Jenny Wren

I felt it.

In my skin as it crawled, strapped into wire underwear, as the hair grew on my legs and I hunched my shoulders to hide my body and the baggy jumpers that fell to my knees.

It lived in me.

As a teenager, the guilt, the fear, disposable, sweaty, smelly, sinful, regress back to childhood with your French-braided hair, horses and fairytales.

Thought I killed it.

When I roared my child out of my body and faced oblivion, I saw the shame as separate from me and found strength in calling it by name at last.

I knew it.

When I wed after bed and my breasts were for feeding my child but it was disrespectful, distasteful, don't let the old men see.

Confirmed it. I was forced to confront, I dove deep, lay in the dark of the shame and bathed in it. Pointed my toes to the moonlight, in awe of the tar of it. Felt it hot and sticky where I was coated in it.

I realised it wasn't mine.

When I rose from the darkness only to be batted down.

When their eyes wouldn't make contact with mine.

When the panic grew in my throat and my soul screamed no and I felt the shame try to claw me back, just one last time...

No.

And you're right about one thing, I am easy after all. Easy to love, easy to trust, easy to laugh with, easy to spend time with, I move my body with the ease that it is to be me, to be free. Free of the shame that so long lived in this perfect body.

So you keep throwing shame

And I'll keep being free

Story Of A Good Girl | Jenny Wren

Dolls lined up, all in a row.

Fairy girl, bright hair, wasn’t to know.

Told I was a flirt with my big eyes and lashes.

Two years old.

When I got older, my imagination burst.

Animals and princesses as I turned and turned.

Heart hungry, heart shy.

Pinning my hopes on those boys that I liked.

If I only knew how vulnerable

I looked on the outside.

#

When I grew older, the horses arrived

I learned magic with my hands and healed them

With my mind.

Hours in the stableblock, whispering

Hauling hay

Sweating in my good body, girl body,

Woman’s body

That threatened to turn bad.

Dangerous in my knee socks

And my skirt

Thigh-high.

And now it was drink and endless nights.

Told I loved the drama

Instead I tried to hide.

You’d find me under tables and in cupboards most times.

Overwhelmed from the pain

I carried

Inside.

They didn’t want to know—

Thought that my instability

Was an affront to their ability

Every mouthful I denied

Mocking their sacrifice,

Sometimes I still feel the choke

Where food symbolised

The food of love.

#

Painted patterns

On my skin

Needles pushed through cartilage.

A different kind.

As a child I worshipped

At the stain-glass walls

Now I worship

Under artist’s scrawls

The sound of the gun can penetrate

Through to the bone.

Pressing to become more real, more real

More.

I found a man

Who called me home

That irresistible emptiness

So familiar

Beckoning forth.

#

Body rounding, what is this?

I know I dreamed of you

Little fish

You wriggle and thrive

And all I have to do to keep you

Is survive

And birthing you could be

The hardest thing in my life

And I did it,

And you’re here

And you’re telling me that it was all lies.

Look how the pretty one

Can be bloody and wise

Roaring her child earthside

#

Unlearning takes time.

The labyrinth to traverse

The lessons so hard

You have to learn twice.

I am not the dancing girl

But the woman

In her fortress.

The warrior

Even when my voice trembles.

Those hands for healing

Now used in birthing

The power that I find in words

Come together

Weave

A magic web around my world

#

You will attempt to cross

At your peril.